


can we try again?

by Fictropes



Series: 2009 no show Dan [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009, 2020 (but we will ignore the world and the state of it), Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Pining, depression and anxiety mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 06:47:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26468926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictropes/pseuds/Fictropes
Summary: “Yeah, Phil. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Dan answers, softer than he’d wanted because he already knows what he’s about to do next.(or Dan doesn't turn up in 2009 and bumps into Phil 11 years later at a youtube convention)
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: 2009 no show Dan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944535
Comments: 156
Kudos: 261





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [if you would just like to ABSOLUTELY scream at me on tumblr](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> someone on tumblr the other day: what fics would oyu like to see?  
> me: oh one where dan doesn't turn up in 2009..... but i'll never ever write it!  
> me like 3 days later: I will write it!
> 
> (this 2009 will definitely diverge from what we know as dan will never have had a gf in this during the time of 2009 because writing about THAT dynamic... no thanks/i don't know what dan's fmaily is actually like! and this isn't a direct retelling as i do not claim this is dan and phil's reality .. obviously. this is an entirely fictional ball of angst!)

_18th October 2009._

“I’m just saying-“ Honestly Dan has no idea what Phil is saying, he’d zoned out ten minutes ago, briefly flickering back in and out when the - ever dramatic - man on the other end of the Skype call makes a particularly big gesture that demands attention. 

He’s got a t-shirt on, one that dips just on the edge of too low and is showing off a pretty collarbone. Are collarbones pretty? Dan thinks so.

  
  
He hates that he thinks so, desperately wishes he didn’t. Thinking Phil’s collarbones are pretty is a dangerous thought, a dangerous thought that could lead to more dangerous thoughts and - _fuck._

“Daniel Howell - are you even listening? Is anybody home?” Phil’s voice in real life - or at least off youtube - has this soft quality to it, the loudness in his videos drowned out and leaving behind something that makes Dan’s heart flippy flop around in his chest. 

“Yeah, sorry.” He comes back into the room, the thoughts that had escaped, that had been floating around in mid-air cramming themselves back into the taped up part of his brain. It has warning signs and bright colours, sounds a siren whenever Dan opens it up too much. Phil’s not mad - he never is - he’s always got this air of patience surrounding him, Dan thinks he could probably reach out and touch it if he tried. It’d be something soft and soothing, like a big fluffy blanket that would drape around Dan’s shoulders and make him feel safe - such is the patience of Phil Lester. 

“Where’d you go off to? The shop? Did you at least bring me back something, I think i’ve eaten my Mum out of house and home this week.” The casual way in which he speaks about his family always reminds Dan they’re _not_ the same, he’s mentioned his own mum a grand total of once and that was only because she’d come in without knocking one day. 

The fear that had taken over his entire body had been overwhelming, if anyone from the outside was looking in they’d assume Dan had been caught making confessions of love - dick out in front of Phil, maybe - not just simply speaking to another bloke. He’d slammed his laptop shut so incredibly quickly, part of him was expecting it to be broken when he opened it back up,once his mum was done collecting his dirty clothes for a last minute wash before she went off out somewhere - t _he weather is too nice to not hang stuff out to dry!_

“I did not, you greedy bastard. I witnessed you eat nearly an entire loaf of bread at the start of this conversation, Phil.” He smiles, because he always does, because Phil has a way of drawing it out of him even when he feels like - like a bag of bees. 

“I’m just trying to eat everything before she leaves, if I look at her all puppy dog eyed whilst stood in front of a bunch of empty cupboards - you know?” Dan shakes his head, he does not - in fact - know. Sometimes Phil just strings a bunch of words together and deems them a sentence, cuts himself off midway and decides that he doesn’t need to add anything else because it should already make sense. Dan usually gets what he means, which is terrifying to think about, but today he doesn’t because he’s a billion miles away, he’s sat up on Mars with a tiny festering thought of just how much he wants to press his lips against Phil’s left collarbone. 

“What?” Dan offers, when it becomes clear Phil isn’t willing to speak again before Dan does.

  
  
“Ugh, obvious. If she sees her poor, sad wasting away child.. and foodless cupboards she’ll leave me more money to order pizza in the week.” He’s grinning like he’s a genius, like the thought should win him a Nobel prize for trickery and shenanigans. “You and me, Danny, are going to be so full of dominos that if anyone looked inside of us they’d just see floating pepperoni - and that plastic cheese they use.” 

“You like the plastic cheese cos it doesn’t taste like cheese.” He points out, ignoring the angry way his brain starts to panic at the thought of Phil’s mum leaving, Phil’s mum leaving means Dan’s train arriving. He thinks that’s the main issue right now, knowing this Skype call is the last of its kind. The last of not having met in real life, not having hugged and shared space on Phil’s sofa, not having - _no_. His mind won’t even let him go there. 

If it goes there then he might not - _go there._

To Manchester. 

To _Phil_. 

“Exactly. Cheese is made purely as trap by the farming industry.” Phil says, like it’s fact, like it’s not insane. 

  
  
“I’m not even going to ask you to explain that cos I think it’ll make my brain explode into a tiny million pieces.” Actually, he could do with that right now - a complete obliteration. There’s bees in his stomach and two tiny men in white outfits fencing in his mind, they’ve got long swords and they’re battling to either get into the taped up area of Dan’s brain - or to stay out of it. He doesn’t know which. He’s going to let them fight it out, not get involved, his own thoughts are none of his business - actually.

“Good call, I wouldn’t want to spoil my next youtube series for you - _cheese and the way it ruined me..not clickbait_.” He’s got such big fucking eyes, Dan thinks, they seem to take in everything and they always seem to be laser focused. He’s looking at Dan like he’s something worth looking at, not just this pile of messy thoughts and awkward words. 

He thinks he loves Phil - or at least could (he already does). 

That knocks Dan back down from Mars so quickly he’s surprised he lasts the trip, he should’ve turned into a flame about half a second ago - hurtling back down to earth as an orange ball with no thoughts.  


  
“Phil.” It comes out choked, and it’s embarrassing, a reminder of all the reasons Phil shouldn’t have even replied to his needy tweets, to his even needier dm’s. He’d been a nervous wreck during their first Skype call, spent half the time staring at Phil like he had two heads. He couldn’t wrap his own - singular - head around it, that Phil wanted to talk to _him -_ to spend his free time listening to Dan go on about things that didn’t even matter. 

  
  
“Hey.” Phil taps on his screen, like he’s trying to reach out and comfort Dan. “You alright? I promise cheese isn’t that bad.”

  
  
“Shutup.” Dan giggles, scrubs a hand over his face in a desperate attempt to reset whatever emotion it’s currently displaying. “Sorry. I’m just so fucking tired.”

“Alright.” Phil says easily, he’s never been the one to push Dan into difficult conversations - he usually appreciates it - but today he wishes Phil _would._ Maybe then the bees would stop buzzing, the men would lay down their swords and Dan would feel more like a human being than some weird one man freak show in some random field. 

“Alright.” Dan agrees, and he rolls over onto his stomach with a groan so loud it surprises him. “Does my room look particularly brown today, or is it just me?”

  
  
“It looks the same as ever, you look - you look different, though. That top makes your eyes look particularly -“ and he’s thinking, thinking about what to say next and how to say it, “Pretty.” It’s soft and shy and it makes Dan’s heart constrict, makes him desperately wish he could do this outside of a Skype call, outside of flirty texts and late night calls that veer into something that sounds like love. 

“They’re just as brown as my room.” Dan balks, and he hates the way Phil deflates and how it’s so visible even on his shitty wi-fi. 

They flirt, that’s obvious to anyone with eyeballs. Dan sends out stupid jealous tweets, comments on videos and dailybooths with an air of _He’s mine and no one else even look at him._ So it’s unfair, isn’t it? That sometimes he’ll act like Phil’s being embarrassing simply for being sincere. 

When the darkness settles in around them Dan gets a bit bolder, he’ll accept nice words and brazen compliments with dimples and a rosy patch burning on his jaw. But at 3pm - when the sun is streaming in and illuminating all the obvious -it’s not as easy. He’ll bat words away, he’ll act like this doesn’t mean anything when it means everything.

Phil changes the subject, senses Dan is not in the mood to be reminded that Phil thinks he’s the greatest thing to walk the earth - the greatest thing since sliced bread, and he’d devoured a whole damn loaf of that an hour ago. “You packed? I still think you should not be packed just so I can force you into my clothes, I still think you’d look ace in all the colour I have to offer. Just one little jumper? A little green one? A green boy?”

“So you can take photos and show everyone that I don’t exist purely in black and white? No thank you, Lester.” It’s not that, actually, it’s the fact that the idea of wearing something belonging to Phil makes his breath catch and his palms get all clammy. “I have an aesthetic I need to maintain.” 

“Annoying boy.” Phil doesn’t mean it, says it with such fondness and Dan _knows_ it’s not just been him having all these L word thoughts. “Can we at least get you in some navy blue? Or something stripy? Ooo! I think you’d suit stripes, you’d look like a kinda sexy where’s wally.” 

And it’s still 3pm so Dan resolutely ignores all of that, “what’s the plan for tomorrow, then? Grand tour of the big Primark? Gonna take me to every Starbucks in the city till i’m off my tits on caffeine?” 

He handles the subject change well, even if his stupid big blue eyes do blink a few too many times in quick succession, “I - I don’t think you have tits to get off on.” 

  
  
“No,” Dan laughs, honks, cackles, anything else that should be unattractive but actually makes Phil look like he’s never seen or heard anything better (why can’t it be on sided? Knowing he can _have_ this makes it worse). “I do not have tits to get off on.” 

“Shutup, you make my words sound like bad ones.” He scratches at bare skin, knocks the top down further and knocks Dans words out of his mouth. He was going to say something, something stupid and silly and now all he can think about is pale skin and the littering of freckles he wants to trace with his fingers. 

_You want him,_ the taped up part of his brain offers, this one fleeting thought escaping like it was something he wasn’t already horrendously aware of. A man with a sword stabs it, it deflates like a balloon and goes flying off back to the naughty step. 

“You make your own words sound like bad ones, stupid.” He stares off into the corner, if he looks at Phil anymore he might say something along the lines of, _I think i’m in love with you but that terrifies me so we can we pretend that i’m not?_

“This is good, let’s get all the arguments out now before tomorrow. I don’t wanna argue with you in Piccadilly train station over how everything I say is actually amazing, and someone should follow me around with a little notebook to capture all this gold.” Phil is grinning, he can hear it even if he can’t see it. Just the mere prospect of arguing with Dan in a fucking train station is making Phil giddy in a way Dan wishes he could be. 

He’d gone from booking train tickets with shaking hands and a thumping heart, to wanting to rip them up into tiny little pieces once he’d realised what meeting Phil actually entailed. This thing - this now - is all contained and easy to control, and tomorrow is going to be the opposite of that. It’s going to be physical presence and big blue eyes - Dan swears they’re more than blue but the quality of his camera won’t allow him to confirm that - looking at him in the flesh. 

He’s scared of a lot of things. Of being disappointing, of being something Phil doesn’t actually want, letting down the only person who has ever seen him for who he is, of trampling on Phil’s heart if he goes in for a kiss and Dan stops him. He’s mainly scared of confirming what he thinks he already knows, meeting Phil and being in love would mean he’s - he’s.. _that._

“We’re not a made for tv movie, Phil. I’m not going to argue with anyone in public, ever.” It’s getting close to the time Phil has to leave to go to the airport, he’d wanted to say goodbye to his parents because he’s like that. They’re like that - a proper family unit. Dan doesn’t claim to understand, he’s always fucking thrilled when he hears the door close - when he can be alone. 

Phil's heading straight to a friends after that - the reason for this godforsaken too revealing 3pm Skype call in the first place - had told Dan they live right in the city centre so he can make sure he definitely gets to the station on time. That had been his main worry, he’d immediately started ranting about how the buses in his town are useless - and he didn’t want to leave Dan stranded with only a Pret-A-Manger for company. This will be easy, he’d said, I can walk there, definitely not be late. Dan had just been shocked anyone was willing to walk for him. 

“Boring. Could totally make our own low budget soap opera, think that’d really make my youtube channel pop.” He says the word pop ridiculously, makes his mouth do something stupid and Dan’s struck with the thought - _i’d really rather like to kiss him._

Sword men, where the fuck are you? 

“I see! I get it. You’re just using me for monetisation.” It’s easier to stay light, to stay calm and composed here and then breakdown in his too brown room later. 

“Yeah?” Phil shrugs, like that’s just the most obvious thing ever. “I thought you already knew that? We’re going to split the proceeds and buy a yacht.”

“You get seasick!”

  
  
“No.” 

  
  
“Yes.”

  
  
“N- fine.” Phil pouts, bottom lip properly jutting out in a way that isn’t helping this downward spiral of Dan’s at all. “Ruin my life of luxury and grandeur.”

  
  
“Mate, you’ve got a fucking green carpet - that you personally picked - there’s nothing grand about you.” He tries to imagine himself sat on that carpet - Phil all sharp knees and elbows beside him - tries to picture him living that life. The life he wants. It all feels too surreal, too much like he’s being fake even though that version - the version of him being with Phil - would be the authentic one. He’s saved from more thinking by the shout of Phil’s mum in the background.

  
  
Phil pulls a face, “that’s my cue to go, wish me luck, think about how I won’t be sick in the car and make in reality.” 

“Sit on a newspaper, or suck a polo.” They’re placebos that might just work on Phil. 

“What if I - no, I probably shouldn’t eat newspaper.” He sighs, genuinely disappointed for some unimaginable reason. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” And his smile is suddenly so blinding that Dan lifts his arm up to shield his eyes - or to shield his poor defenceless heart from the sight of it.

Someone like Phil -the embodiment of good - shouldn’t be this excited to see him. 

“Yeah, Phil. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Dan answers, softer than he’d wanted because he already knows what he’s about to do next. 

-

_19th October, 2009._

**10:35am: I’m going to leave extra early incase there’s people traffic xD**

**10:37am: If i’m early i’ll get you a muffin**

**10:55am: I think i’m wearing too much cologne cos I was scared i might get sweaty on the walk and stink :3**

**11:01am: ignore the cologne it’s not mine.. I wasn’t expecting it to be so strong. apologies in advance if i burn out ur nostril hair**

**11:25am: Okkkkkkkkk i’m leaving NOW**

**11:50am: I am here! this is the quickest i’ve ever walked! i still have 20 minutes to spare :P. I will get the muffin. Are u trying to reserve battery for music? Soz for blowing up your phone  
  
12:11pm: oh! theres ur train, I think. that’s what the tickets said! many men with business suits who will probs beat me up for being in the way**

**12:21pm: Dan?**

Dan squeezes his eyes shut as he squeezes the power button on his phone, hears it land with a clatter as he drops in down the side of his bed. Out of sight out of mind probably won’t apply in this situation, but anything to stop the guilt that’s currently eating up his insides. 

His door bursts open, his mum home from her meeting. “Oh! You’re still here? I though you were -“ She pauses because she can’t remember, Phil's just a completely abstract concept to her. 

“Yeah. Er - it just. The train. Something on the line? Leaves. I don’t know. It’s October, probably windy out there.” He wants her to leave so he can scream into his his pillow - he wants her to see he’s in pain and hug him. 

“Oh! Alright. Another day, then?” She smiles, but he already knows she’ll forget today was supposed to happen at all, will never bring it up and he finds himself grateful for his families lack of interest for once. 

“Yeah.” Dan agrees, a big fat lie of a thing. “Oh, and, I stupidly dropped my phone on the way there. The little sim bit fell out the side and my sim card is - I don’t know. Couldn’t find it. Is there a spare one in the house? I’ll have to just text everyone my new number.”

  
  
Dan’s mum hums as she collects the dirty plates off his windowsill, “I believe there’s one in the drawer in the hall cabinet, one of them free ones they always seem to be giving away.” 

“Cool. Thanks.”

  
She leaves after that. Dan’s hates it, hates that no one can see when he’s on the verge of _something_. No one but - _no._

He opens his laptop, he vows to never again log into skype, he deactivates his facebook and twitter - leaves himself with the option of opening them up again one day.

Then his laptop is on the floor and he loses it completely. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if u wanna follow me on tumblr 4 scream purposes on info purposes<3 I need u all to know now that Dan in this fic is just a great idiot, a complete himbo.. and you all need to respect him for that, please](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)

19th February, 2020. 

“Daniel Howell, what time do you call this?” His manager is stood in the entrance of the LA convention centre, looking two seconds away from bopping him over the head with a giant comedy mallet. He doesn’t quite know where she’ll get one from, but he believes she has the power to pull one directly out of an orifice - or thin air. 

“I call this twelve pm, what time do you call it?” And he’s being cheeky because he’s allowed to be, because she’s got a soft spot for him even if she’s loathe to admit it. He’d gotten lucky with her, found someone willing to put up with his bullshit - but she’ll still turn around and put him in his place if he goes a bit too far. 

He has a short list of rejected tweets that she’s categorically banned him from posting. He leaves them all saved in his drafts, maybe Twitter will have a breakdown and release them all into the one world one day - it’s up to god now. 

“I will - what the fuck are you wearing? Is that a romper? Jesus christ, Daniel, you’ve been in LA for all of a minute.” She shoos him up the stairs and through the back entrance, he’d learnt from experience that going through the front doors was a terrible idea and led to approximately one hour of signing shit out of crippling politeness.

“You’re supposed to be supportive, Mel, like a nice manager that I pay to be nice to me.” 

“Yes, yes. You look beautiful and if I wasn’t a massive lesbian, and you weren’t a massive gay, i’m sure we’d create massive straight babies.” She catches him by his romper sleeves, shoves a lanyard around his neck so he doesn’t end up being kicked out by security for looking like he’s gate-crashing as a very camp mailman. 

“Massive straight babies? Can you not assume the sexuality of our children.” The comedy mallet is getting ever closer to his head. 

  
  
“I will assume the words of my 30 days notice if you don’t stop being so peppy when you’re a full hour late.” They make it through the doors and into the little back stage area, it’s full of you-tubers he’d spent the better part of ten years ignoring - no I will not collab with you.

He was known for being a little bit of a recluse - a little bit of a weirdo, if he’s being honest. A respected weirdo, though. His name can draw attention, and slapping a photo of him on your thumbnail - well - monetisation here we come. 

That’s the issue, though, no one is sincere enough to mean anything to Dan. They see dollar signs, they want to probe Dan and bring out secrets before anyone else can. He has a total of one collab on his channel and it’s with a celebrity dog. 

“You don’t mean that, you know i’m the most manageable one here. I’m not asking you to - fucking, to pick out all the green and yellow skittles and leave me with only the good colours in a bowl that has to be a specific shape.” He dodges her attempts to pull at one of his curls, had seen it coming from a mile away because after seven years they’re both nothing if not predictable. 

“Sit.” He sits, like a good celebrity dog.

  
  
“Talking points, do you have them?”

  
  
“Yes, you know i’m nothing if not overly prepared, even if i’m also late - they can co-exist.” He crosses he long legs beneath him, trying to gauge just how much of a mistake the romper was. It wasn’t short enough that he might end up accidentally flashing the audience, but it was short enough that it meant his legs may end up sticking to the plastic chair. Trying to be edgy and cool was a sham. 

“You know most of the questions are going to be aimed at BIG, yeah? Try not to let that annoy you, we all know you’re a multitude of things and not just that gay guy, but it’s your first public thing since then.” She’s gone softer now, as she always does when they discuss a certain video. She’d been his absolute biggest cheerleader throughout, he had about five live reaction videos of her just crying and then smashing her iPad after she apparently forgot how to grip things. 

“That 35 minutes gay masterpiece I made? Yeah. I had an inkling.” Dan grins, she finally bops him - not with an inflatable mallet but - with a spoon she was using to stir coffee. 

He’d told her once before that he felt something was missing, but he couldn’t work out _what._ Felt as though there should be an overly sappy, romantic conclusion in there where he spoke about soulmates and - companionship. 

There should’ve been an extra ten minutes of footage where he spilt his heart out to the love of his life - or something. 

“No? I was talking about your other video from last year.. oh, wait, there was no other video.” They both pull faces at each other, immature and stupid and something that puts Dan more at ease than he had been when he’d first arrived.

“It’s coming! I was taking a long break for personal reasons which I will not divulge to the likes of you.” She rolls her eyes heavenward, asking the angels to come down and shove Dan down through the carpeted floor and into the flames of hell. 

“I don’t care, Dan, you know I don’t. Don’t make me do my whole i’m proud of you speech again.” She sits down beside him, hands him a cup of coffee that looks like it’s 99% milk.

“Is this oat milk, or at least almond?”

  
  
“Yes, we all know you’re a practising vegan - even if I saw you eat non-dairy ben and jerry’s the other day.” She tips her head down to rest on his shoulder, and it’s funny how they probably look like a couple. 

“You know, on the flight over a kid spent the entirety of the time absolutely pummelling his little feet into the back of my chair.” He offers, swiftly changing the subject.

“Fun. What’d you do? Report him to the pilot? Get him kicked off with a baby parachute?” 

“No, shutup.” He scoffs, steals one of the biscuits she’s holding for snacking on later when heinevitably escapes upstairs and avoids the whole group lunch thing. “I said fuck all, you already know that. I don’t want to even accidentally scare a child - ever - so I just let it happen. His mum noticed about half an hour before the end of the flight and told him off.” 

“You’re too precious sometimes. You’re all _oh I’m Dan and i’m edgy and a dark prince of darkness_ , but you’ve got this big ol’ soft heart.”

He does not enjoy that description, would go as far as to say he resents it. “I’m not speaking to you for about an hour now.”

  
  
“Finally.” 

\- 

His legs do stick to the plastic seats, leave him with red marks all up the back of his thighs and a diminishing sense of being cool. 

The first panel had gone as expected, he answered all the questions about the big gay reveal, answered a couple on his lack of love life. 

  
  
He had _things,_ they didn’t mean anything. Just a way for him to scratch a certain itch. He’d said it before, and he’d say it again, sex was very much a big thing for him. He enjoyed it, loved it, may even go as far as saying he was craving it right now - LA made him inexplicably horny. 

He’d die before he fucked any of the youtubers here, though. They’d probably wrap it up in a neat little bow and post all about it, _My mediocre night with Daniel Howell (viagra?) NOT CLICKBAIT._

He was only obligated to turn up to one panel today, has a multitude of things tomorrow but for now he’s scot free. He surveys the crowds, immediately makes the decision to leave the convention centre and head to the hotel to play games for the rest of the night. If he goesnow he’ll catch that really good time of day where everyone seems to be online. 

He’s deep in fantasy land as he walks down the hallway, he’s thinking about how much room service he can order for one person without it seeming weird. He’s thinking too deep apparently, because the next thing he knows he’s smashing into a body (or a wall).

The wall squeaks though so it’s probably a human. He is absolutely going to open his mouth and apologise, obviously, but then he looks up and words become but a distant memory. Had he even actually ever learnt to talk? At this moment in time it doesn’t feel like it. 

Phil. 

Lester. 

That one, that Phil Lester. 

They make eye contact and Phil does - nothing. There’s just nothing - tumbleweeds. It’s like his brains empty and it’s just a big old spiderweb in there making use of the free real restate. 

There’s zilch in his eyes to indicate he even knows who Dan is - _remembers_ who he is. It shouldn’t knock Dan off centre so much, for Phil to not just acknowledge _it_ all in the middle of a huge event hotel filled with nosy people, but it absolutely does. 

He’d rather Phil scream at him - have that train station argument - than this eery silence thing he’s doing. 

Dan cracks eventually. “I’m sorry.” And is he apologising for smacking into Phil in an empty hallway, or is he apologising for the eighteen year old boy who’d vanished without a trace. He wants to say both, he wants Phil to say that’s ok and mean it - Dan knows he doesn’t deserve that, though. 

“Oh, no, I get it. The hallway is just so busy that you couldn’t have avoided it.” Phil’s says gesturing around at absolutely no-one, but he’s grinning so Dan thinks that’s ok. 

It’s mainly the voice thatstartles Dan, it’s now something closer to his own than the northern thing he’d had going on back then. It shouldn’t shock him as much as it does, he’s watched every video the man has ever made and he _knew_ full well he sounded different now. It just still does something weird to his brain, though, because this particular voice has never been aimed at him and he’s just waiting for him to slip and say.. _ace_. 

“I was thinking about food sex.” Dan blurts, and he’s such an idiot at all times. He should be wearing a big chain around his neck that says _do not interact._

Or a dunce hat. 

“Independently? Or together?” Phil asks, so seemingly unaffected that Dan wants to lift up the back of his jumper and see if there’s a little panel in there for his robot parts. He’s the sort of cool Dan tries to be, and it’s a world away from the Phil he’d known back then. 

“Er - not together?” Dan asks, like he should be seeking permission for it. Phil looks at him properly this time - still no indication of knowing him -but at least he looks at him like he’s actually a person. 

And when Phil looks at him he tries not to think about 2009, he tries so hard not to. He avoids thinking about how Phil had once walked him out of a panic attack, definitely doesn't think about how often he suddenly noticed the sun rising and realised they’d been speaking for seven whole hours. He doesn’t think about the pure, unfiltered happiness in Phil’s voice when he’d said _I’ll see you tomorrow._

He thinks about none of those things. All of those things. Everything that had ever happened, and what could’ve happened.

Tomorrow is now and Dan still thinks it’s come around too quickly. It’s a miracle, really, that this had never happened before. By miracle he means he scoured over Star Guest lists and dropped out when he read the name Phil Lester. 

“Huh. You sound unsure, is room service going to walk in on something dodgy?” He looks away so he can press the button for the lift, it’s not an urgent button press like he’s trying to get away from Dan -or anything -but it’s still something that indicates he’d rather be on an entirely different floor. 

It’s the slowest lift in the world, or something that just refuses to give into the social construct of time. Just leaves them both standing there in this empty space that apparently doesn’t exist to anyone else in the world - surely someone else should be using the main hallway of this hotel. It’s like someone’s created this perfect, awful moment for Dan to realise everything he’d given up by dropping his phone down the side of his bed and vanishing from social media for six months. 

Firstly. Phil is hot, and they’re thoughts he allows himself to have now, but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to be having them about Phil - specifically. He’s still got these massive eyes that Dan now can confidently say aren’t just blue - they’re green and a bit yellow, too. He’s grown into the awkward, these big broad shoulders and arms that look like they’ve actually seen a gym from time to time. The white t-shirt suits him, all stark and contrasting against the black hair and Dan almost pisses himself when he catches the streaks of grey. He’s very much _still_ everything Dan could ever want in a man. 

All in all, Phil can wreck him just as much now as he could eleven years ago.

Dan’s dragged away from fantasy land when the lift finally dings. 

“You first.”

  
  
“Do - what? We have to take the lift at separate times?” Dan asks, all wide-eyed and looking like a goddamn dog who’s been told he’s not a good boy.

  
  
“No, i’m saying you go in first and i’ll follow you. The door is tiny.” He looks bemused, like Dan’s a whole idiot - but he’s just dressed himself up in expensive clothes in an effort to portray himself as big brained.

_“Oh.”_

“Yeah, _oh_ , get in you great idiot.” And it’s the first indication of anything, Dan could actually cry. It’s too familiar for a stranger to say to someone, it’s too fond sounding to be mean. It’s _something_ and Dan clings onto it so damn tightly he’s surprised it doesn’t burst in his arms. 

The lift thing is surprisingly sort of chill, he’d expect awkward elevator music and them both trying desperately to not make eye contact in the mirrored walls. They do catch each others eyes, and Phil does pull a stupid face that makes Dan cackle. “You look like a cross between a bunny and being in one of those weird constipation adverts.” 

“My speciality.” Phil assures him, and it’s all really rather nice. It’s a tiny insight into something he’d sort of been missing for almost eleven years. This easiness between them is something he’d convinced himself he’d imagined, but it’s now in this tiny lift telling Dan it’d had existed all along. 

_Phil would’ve understood, you and Phil are easy._

“Scary. Nightmare inducing.. other words that I can’t think of cos I’m too hungry.” Dan’s stomach rumbles in agreement, he pats it pitifully through the material of his romper. He desperately wants to ask for Phil’s opinion on todays fashion choice, but that might be stepping over some sort of invisible elevator line. 

“Big mood.” Phil says, tipping his head to the side and - _oh_ \- is he actually checking Dan out? “Is that - are they— are they pyjamas?” 

  
  
Dan’s inflated ego gets well and truly popped, Phil hadn’t been thinking about doing inappropriate things to him he’d been thinking Dan was inappropriately dressed for being outside.

  
“No! It’s a - like a romper thing? I’m just trying something, obviously I should never try it again. You and my manager have both slagged it off.” He’s trying to play it off like it’s not lowkey hurting his feelings, but he’d really thought he’d something with it. 

“Dan,” and he doesn’t really know what Phil says next because his brain is replaying that on a loop. Phil _does_ know who he is. Or he’s just aware of all of the popular youtubers because it’s his job, because Dan’s name and face literally exist on the poster for this event. Dan stamps that thought down because he much prefers the former. 

“Anybody home?” And it’s such a jolt back to the day before it all went to shit that he wonders if Phil had actually said it on purpose. He seems entirely unaffected, though, so maybe just coincidence. “I was saying it actually looks good on you.” 

  
  
His cheeks burn, the rosy patch immediately showing up to betray him. He’s saved from embarrassing stuttering sentences when the lift arrives at his floor and he turns to say goodbye but - Phil is following him.  


Obviously their rooms are on the same floor and - next to each other. 

  
  
Cool. Dan can’t help but wonder what he’s done that’s so absolutely terrible in a past life to deserve this. 

“So. This is me.” 

  
  
“Is it? I thought it was a hotel room door.” Phil’s quick to say, and he does that laugh - that tongue peeking out between his teeth thing that Dan had always been an absolute fool for. 

“Funny! Are you a comedian?” And he’s probably better than Dan and his one failed attempt at stand-up - the common audience didn’t find jokes about euthanising yourself very humorous. 

“Your mums a comedian.”

  
“Your mum must wonder how she has such a giant old looking twelve year old.”

  
  
Phil gasps, hand to his chest “are you saying I look old?” 

  
  
And he's so clearly joking, but Dan’s still rushing to fix it. “No! No. You don’t. I wasn’t saying that, because you like .. look good.” 

“Uh-huh.” Phil smiles, or smirks. Probably more of the latter. He’s likely realising that for the last ten minutes Dan’s brain has slowly been melting inside of his skull and is due to leak out of his ears any time soon. “Well, you like.. look good, too.” 

“Don’t mimic me, I don’t sound like that.” Dan whines. 

“Like Winnie the pooh? Whatever you say.” 

“I am going to go and eat now, i’m sick of all this hallway slander.” He doesn’t move, though, he feels like a little mouse who’s run through a sticky mouse trap and now his feet are firmly planted on this ugly burgundy and gold carpet. 

“What are you having?” 

  
  
“Dunno, the whole menu if I can get away with it. Do you think they’d judge me for ordering it all if they open the door and see it’s literally just me in this, basically, giant babygrow?” He asks, genuinely curious and not at all fishing and that’s why he’s surprised when Phil says -

“They might judge you less if it’s the two of us.” 

-

“Fuck! No, there’s no way you’re about to beat me ten times in a row. You’re a cheater. You are a cheater of Mario Kart.” Phil used to swear on Skype, but it’s been so long since he heard profanities coming from his mouth that it makes Dan’s finger slip on the joy-stick and Phil zooms off into first place and over the finish line before Dan has the change to register what’s happening. 

“Oh.” He says stupidly, staring at the screen as he comes in a lousy seventh place. “That was - we’re done playing.” 

  
  
“Cos I won?” Phil’s gloating and if were coming from anyone else it it’d rub Dan up the wrong way, but with Phil it’s just.. endearing. 

“No, i’m not the sore loser here, my stomach is just ready for all the dessert we didn’t even make an attempt at.” 

They’d promised to go back to the dessert the second even one percent of free space became available in their bellies. 

They really had gone all out, room service had an abundance of everything and neither of them wanted to leave any option out just in case it ended up being the best thing on the menu. 

Phil immediately consumed all the dairy in the land despite his claims of being mildly lactose intolerant, and Dan had shoved an entire slice of pizza in his mouth just to prove a point. He can’t help but think about the promises of dominos all those years ago, wonders if this moment has striking similarities to the moment that never was. 

Phil hasn’t mentioned anything to do with that time at all, not even hinted at remembering it was a thing. In all fairness neither has Dan, but the difference is is he can read his own mind but he can’t read Phil’s so all this not knowing is killing him. There may be a million thoughts whizzing about in Phil’s mind right now about too long Skype calls. About Dan shyly admitting things at 3am when time didn’t quite feel real, and when Phil made him feel safe enough to let certain words spill out of him. 

He’s thrown a certain image then of Phil sprawled out shirtless in his bed, hand moving just below camera. 

He chokes on a macaroon and he can never explain to Phil why. 

“Thinking about food sex?” Phil asks, because he’s still the cheeky bastard he had been eleven years ago and Dan should never have expected anything less. The momentary bout of coolness he’d displayed in hallway was all a ruse to trick Dan into thinking he wouldn’t be bullied. 

“Yeah.” Dan goes along with it this time, partly because it could be be considered true and partly just to knock Phil off-piste a bit. “Where do you think this cucumber could go?” There’s not even a cucumber up here but he can hardly suggest he shove a bowl of ice-cream up .. somewhere - an orifice. 

“Horrible boy.” Phil talks around a spoonful of something incredibly chocolate-y, he wonders if the heart attack will come from the all the food he’s consumed or watching Phil lick this piece of metal. 

“Yeah.” Dan agrees, and it’s something that comes with two meanings again. If Phil does remember, if Phil is sitting here fully aware of who Dan is and what he’s done.. then he deserves to be called more than just horrible. 

He thinks he’s an idiot, that if you’re going to leave someone waiting for you on a train platform then you should at least cut them entirely out of your life afterwards. You shouldn’t create a separate twitter and Instagram and have them on notification, you shouldn’t watch all of their youtube videos and create a playlist of your absolute favourite ones to watch when you’re feeling especially sad.  


Phil wasn’t this free entertainment anymore, he was a guy who Dan might’ve broken a little bit. 

-

19th October, 2009 _  
_

_@AmazingPhi hm. I guess some things just aren’t meant to be?_

_@AmazingPhil nothing is up, i’m fine guys! I will be once I stop smelling like i’ve been sprayed by 12 department stores :O_

_@AmazingPhil [twitpic] everyone look at this pigeon in Piccadilly gardens i think it wanted to be friends. at least someone does xD_

_@AmazingPhil new vid tomorrow! Just me.. and my green carpet :3_

20th October, 2009

_@AmazingPhil new vid! Q &A with myself :P _

_21st October, 2009_

_  
  
@AmazingPhil yay! i’m glad everyone enjoyed :3 cat whiskers for everyone. RAWR.XD_

_@AmazingPhil awkwardly returning christmas gifts. er i accidentally told the lady they’d died. squeak. sorry shop lady_

_@AmazingPhil [twitpic] does this pigeon in my garden look the same as the other day??? vote now!!!!!_

_22nd October, 2009_

_@AmazingPhil wish i had some hugs_

_23 October, 2009_

_  
  
@AmazingPhil if u have some more questions send them in and i’ll do a part 2 in the future!_

_@AmazingPhil maybe i can get google translate 2 read them out for me xD_

_@AmazingPhil how do u feel about life and how it’s just like.. that sometimes_

_24th October_

_@AmazingPhil parents come home soon! 2 many creepy noises in this house for just me_

_@AmazingPhil yes!!! every1 !!! I am wishing i went on a free holiday too :P_

_@Amazingphil :(_

25th October, 2009

_@AmazingPhil how much dominoes is too much for ONE person?_

_  
  
@AmazingPhil longest week of my life is long._

  
  
@AmazingPhil uh oh I forgot i made some reservations and now i think an angry man is calling me to say their restaurant is too popular 4 no shows

_@AmazingPhil guys! Really hope u enjoyed the list vid <3 gonna be taking a break for a couple weeks. <3_

_-_

21st February, 2020. 

It’s suddenly 1am, and it all feels too much like before. The seven hours of time getting lost to absolute nonsense conversations - and soft looks that might mean something. Dan closes his eyes and when he opens them again he’s fully expecting the walls to be brown, for the guilt to be heavy in his stomach because of how much Phil is making him feel. 

He opens them again. The walls are still white. Phil is still beside him and all Dan can think about is how much he wants, wants without the bees in his stomach, the sword men fighting it out in his head.

Wants without the guilt. 

It’s.. nice, but it’s also eleven years too late. 

They never mention 2009, but they mention basically everything else. Talking now remains just as easy as talking back then, it’s almost like they were never supposed to stop. Fate had had this plan for them that Dan had screwed up into a ball and thrown out of his bedroom window. 

They’d transitioned from the sofa to Dan’s bed, hanging upside down from the end watching dog tiktok compilations. He’s the one holding the iPad up above their heads, and it’s absolutely killing his arm but Phil keeps doing this delightful little giggle so the pain is all worth it. 

It won’t be worth it when Dan drops it on both of their faces in a minute because Phil keeps accidentally brushing their fingers together, Dan’s gay heart is fragile and there’s not even any scaffolding in there to support it.

“Do you think dogs experience embarrassment?” Phil asks, watching Jasper the dog run headlong into a another dog to try and retrieve his ball. He looks absolutely baffled when he doesn’t go straight through it, like physics is a lie and he should be able to go ghost and just float through this massive great dane. 

“Er - I hope so.” Dan murmurs, “but what I really hoped was for that to end with the small dog zooming beneath the big dog and ending up looking like.. like it’s wearing it as a hat.”

“Oh! Cute! Once my dog camped out beneath this big fluffy boy, like buriedbeneath him and I couldn’t find him. He was just curled up in this dudes fur like I live here now, don’t take me away from the most ultimate source of comfort.” 

Dan sits up too quickly, pays for it when all the blood rushes to his head and makes him see stars. The stars are Phil and this apparent dog. “What the fuck, Phil, you have a dog?”

  
  
“Oh, yeah.” He looks sheepish, like he hadn't quite meant to say it. That was their thing back in 2009, saying things accidentally because that’s just - what they did to each other. 

“I repeat, what the fuck? Where? How? When - Phil.” He whines, because it’s been seven hours without this knowledge and seven hours of not staring at every photo on Phil’s camera roll.

  
  
“I wanted something for myself, does that sound stupid? I think online everyone wants everything all the time. If i’d have posted about him then he would’ve just been.. not all mine anymore.” 

  
  
“That makes sense.” Dan says. Phil’s siting up to join him now, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “What’s he called?”

  
  
“No comment.”

  
  
“Er - what?”

“I’m not telling you.” Phil’s zooming through his photos to get back to the start, it looks like he has a camera roll of around a million and Dan has absolutely nothing but respect for him - he’d do the same. 

“What do you - Phil!” Dan squawks, offended and dramatic and everything he always assumed was too much but Phil had liked anyway.

“Dan.”

“Yeah?”

  
  
“No I mean.. Dan. The dog is called Dan. Don’t even - I got him from a shelter and he was already so used to the name that I didn’t have the heart to change it.” 

  
“Fuck off.” Dan is a bit overwhelmed, a bit shaky because it almost feels like Dan hadn’t turned up and Phil had just replaced him with a dog (which, honestly, probably better for Phil.) 

“What? I can’t help it! I fell in love with this little fluffy menace so I had to accept that it had a human name.” He doesn’t say Dan. Not I couldn’t help it had a Dan.. name. Just a human name. Which means their thoughts are both on wildly different paths, Phil’s on a slow country lane and Dan’s on a dirt track going over the speed limit. 

“Right.” Dan narrows his eyes, but Phil is not relenting or giving up anything that Dan wants him to give him so he leaves it alone. 

“Here! He’s tiny.” He hands the phone to Dan, just hands it over in a show of complete blind trust. It’s very bad, actually. “I promise he’s five and not a puppy.”

He is tiny, Dan’s impressed that Phil hasn’t managed to stamp on him with his gigantic clown feet. “I would like him please.” Dan continues to scroll, photo after photo of this tiny little white and brown ball of fur with huge brown doe eyes. “I would literally do anything for him, does he want my apartment? I can live in the bins outside.” His ears have this curly fur, and between that and the eyes Dan can maybe see a resemblance. 

“He is mine, if you try and take him I will have no choice but to kill you. I’m sorry.” Phil’s very solemn, not even joking at all. 

“Understood.” Dan nods, scrolling and cooing and generally being in love until Phil’s phone demands it be charged. 

“I always wanted a dog, I just didn’t think it’d be this tiny boy.”

-

15th September, 2009. 

**_ Daaaan!!!! I just saw a dog omg i wanna steal >:( _ **

**_ what type!!!!! all info plz. __big small? fluffy? big paws? :o do u think it liked you and secretly was looking back at u like plz steal me..you’ll give me more treats.._**

**_ i dunno! a good type. they’re all good boy types! I might’ve followed 4 a little while….  _ **

**_ we should totes get a dog one day. a massive one that like can make us look a bit more intimating and less like two dorks xD  _ **

**_ plz plz plz. I want someone to be excited every time i get home _ **

**_ I mean… i probs will be :P  _ **

**_ ugh, shutup, howell. making me blush outside _ **

**_ make me shutup, Lester  _ **

**_ sooonnnn<3 _ **

\- 

21st February, 2020. 

“You were all dimples for half an hour.” Phil’s taken his phone back, turning it off to reserve the bit of battery it has left. Dan wants to offer his charger but doesn’t know if that’s too forward, if that’s an invitation to stay that Phil doesn’t want.  He’s just as polite as Dan, would probably agree and stay ramrod in Dan’s bed all night. 

“I was looking at a dog, of course I was. I wanna hold him so bad, hold him in my arms like a little baby and tell him he’s just - he should be the president.” 

“He should be.” Phil agrees, and he’s yawning and it’s probably a sign that he should go back to his own room but Dan is so reluctant to point that out. “I declare bone day everyday! Everyday I must be showered in bones or I will use the nuclear codes.”

  
  
“Woah, a dictator.” 

“A nice one! As long as he has bones then everyone else can have free healthcare.” And it’s stupid, so unbelievably stupid in a way that Dan hasn’t been with anyone for years. Anyone since he was last like this with Phil. 

“Tell me the cute things. I wanna know.” Dan rolls over onto his side, props himself up on his elbow in a way that would be perfect for jokes about french girls. 

“If i’m eating and I haven’t given him any he’ll gently tap me with his tiny paw, you’ll look down and this white fluff will just be on your leg. I would love to have the resolve say no, but then also if I say no then I deserve like.. prison.” Phil it still sprawled out, and when he stretches his t-shirt rises and Dan becomes a line in a book about the heart catching moment of seeing a sliver of skin. 

“Cute.” And he’s talking about both Phil and the dog - Dan. “More.” 

“He’s sort of stubborn.” And Phil looks at Dan like it means something, that the two Dans in his life are both as stubborn as each-other and he was the saint who had to deal with them. 

“Bet it’s cos you let him get away with everything.”

  
  
“Yeah.. yeah. I do.” Phil sighs, and his t-shirt is tugged back down as he sits up - it’s a moment Dan mourns for half a second. “No pets?”

  
  
“Oh, no. Landlord would straight up put me in a guillotine if he saw me with so much as a fish.” He’s been looking for something more permanent lately, something with a garden and enough space for an entire pack. 

  
  
“Landlords suck.” Phil screws up his face, it’s very adorable. “Down with capitalism, and all that.” Phil has opinions now, in person, outside of youtube videos where he’s very careful to walk a line of neutrality. The only thing Dan had ever heard him be truly vocal about was his sexuality, watching his coming out video was a bit like a kick in the face. Phil was gay, Dan was gay, but they couldn’t be gay together because he’dabandoned him on a platform - after Phil had payed for half his fucking ticket. 

“Exactly.” Dan agrees, and the tiredness is kicking in for him now, something bone deep that he knows he can’t fight even though he’llput all his effort into trying. “Fuck the rich, but not in a fun way.”

“Are we the rich?” Phil asks, all wide eyed like he’s suddenly realising something terrible. 

  
  
“No. Like - not amazon rich. We are also not underpaying employees for back breaking work, so. And we pay our taxes and donate to charity, but cos we want to donate to charity and not because it’ll give us as a tax break.” Dan may splurge on expensive clothes, but he also has about 100 direct debits for every sort of charity he could find to support. 

“Ok, thanks for talking me down.” Phil laughs, nudges Dan’s calf with his socked foot. It’s a touch that means nothing apart from it means everything and Dan’s head has a tiny mariachi band playing. 

“Always here for it.” And that’s a lie, because he’s not been here for nearly eleven years but Phil shrugs like he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Where are you from, Dan?”Phil asks, asks because he _has_ forgotten all about it. Phil should know he’s from a brown box room in Wokingham - he’s complained about it enough. 

“Oh - like. Near Reading. Why?”

  
  
“Just wondered, everyone else here is so American! It’s nice to hear a British voice.” 

And Dan doesn’t know what’s more crushing. Phil remembering but deeming it unimportant enough to not talk about, or Phil forgetting him completely. 

It’s the latter, of course it’s the fucking latter. He’d thought about Phil every day since and the fact he was alone in that makes him very, very embarrassed all of a sudden.  


He can’t even - even be mad. He’d been the one to do this, to end it, to end it without really closing the chapter because he’d never officially announced to Phil that he was a massive dickhead who couldn’t go through with it. 

Phil was perfectly within his rights to forget, but Dan really wishes he hadn’t. 

Phil senses the dip in mood, moves to leave Dan alone to stew in all his regret. “My manager will kill me if I turn up tomorrow with black eyes.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Dan’s a bit dazed, because now he knows and knowing him is killing him just as much as not knowing. 

They hover awkwardly in the doorway, and it’s Phil that pulls Dan into a hug. It’s beautiful, groundbreaking, the best hug of his life sort of hug. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Phil whispers right into Dan’s ear like they’re just words and not tiny knives. Dan needs to let go before he cries, because he’s dangerously on the verge, one more second and he’ll weep into Phil’s neck and then he’ll have to admit to Phil who he actually is. 

Awkwardly explain how he was _that_ Dan, the Dan who’d acted like Phil was his everything only to ghost him. 

The Dan who started uploading youtube videos six months later, youtube videos Phil had personally approved. He almost wants to apologise for the fact he’s eclipsed in him subscribers.

-

15th August, 2009

_ “Dan! I love it, you look so cute.” Phil had immediately Skyped him after watching his first ever youtube attempt. He said he couldn’t express all of his emotions in just words, Dan needed to see his face to see just how big he felt about it all.  _

_ “Really? I don’t look like a ugly blob?” Forcing himself to watch it back had been an ordeal, all he could see was what was wrong with him. The flaws that everyone pointed out to him at school, the things that apparently made him look.. like something.  _

_ “Can you never call yourself ugly ever again? Hurts me feelings.” Phil pouts, get close to the camera and narrows his eyes like he’s about to tell Dan off. “You look beautiful, you literally always do, Dan.” _

_  
  
“Ugh.” Dan buries his face in his hands, anything to stop Phil from seeing just how red he was. “Shutup. Making me feel all stupid.” _

  
  
_“Oi! Stop insulting yourself, just told you one second ago. Don’t make me bring out my teacher voice. I’ll do it.” Phil threatens, like that’s something that scares Dan as opposed to turns him on (though that’s scary for an entirely different reason)._

_ “You’re just - you’re the one with the.. the face.” _

_  
  
“Wait, what?” Phil asks, as shocked as you can sound when you’re not actually shocked at all. “I thought I was a bowling ball glued onto a body.” _

_  
  
Dan giggles, and decides it’s three am so maybe he can be a little bit brave. He drops his hands, “you’re beautiful, too.”  _

_ Phil doesn’t even attempt to disguise it, just lets all this red sit high up on his cheekbones like it’s allowed to be there. “Absolute death of me.”  _

_ “Says you.” His parents are out, some overnight thing that he hadn’t wanted to be a part of but, his brother was insistent that he was not staying home alone with Dan, so now he’s sat here with all his thoughts and all this Phil. _

_ “Yeah-huh, says me.” They fall into silence after that, as they often do. Phil going back to whatever game he’d been playing, Dan going into his own head. They’ve become each others background noise, that soft safe thing that made you feel calmer just because you knew they were there, that familiarity allowing way for contentment.  _

_ “Phil.” Dan says after about ten minutes, “can I ask you something.” _

_  
  
All of Phil’s attention is immediately back on him, he doesn’t even seem to press any buttons to pause whatever he’d been doing. Is dying on a video game for someone a sign of true love?  _

_ “Yeah, course.” Phil so, so soft. Voice gentle and eyes wider than usual, like he’s trying to convey just how much he wants to listen to Dan. _

_ “Does it feel.. good?” _

_  
  
“I - elaborate?” _

_  
  
“Sex. Sex with other men, having it.. in you, I guess.” Dan shrugs like it isn’t a big deal, but in reality his heart is beating so quickly he’s a bit scared Phil’s going to have to call for an ambulance.  _

_ “Oh!” And Phil doesn’t have to act shocked this time. Dan’s joked around about it before, toed a line, but he’s never straight up asked about it. He’s watched porn but he’s not deluded enough to believe thats a real representation. He’s suddenly desperate for someone he trusts to tell him how it is.  _

_ “It’s like awkward at first, honestly,” Phil laughs, bitting his lip in a way that’s designed to make Dan horny, doing something with his hands that he thinks is meant to represent awkwardness - it looks more lewd than anything. _

_ “At first?” And Dan hates how stupidly jealous he feels when he realises this line of questioning just opens up the floor for Phil to talk about past experiences.  _

_  
  
“Yeah, but then once you get over the oh.. wait - what? Its’s - Dan - it’s really fucking good.”  _

_ “Oh.” Dan swallows, harsh and loud an obvious.  _

_ “Dan, have you eve-“ _

_ “No, no. I’ve thought about it, you know, just - scared.” He’d gone as far as spreading his legs in-front of a mirror, looking at himself whilst he tried to just - his fingers always stilled before he got there. Brain block not allowing him to go any further, always resulted in a disappointing wank.  _

_ “I get it, it’s scary.” Phil’s eyes are blown, though. A thin ring of blue left behind once the black had taken over. “I could.. are you alone, Dan?” _

_ “Yeah, yes. I told you earlier.” _

_  
  
“Alright.” He watches as Phil moves andshifts and forces himself to actually sit up straight, which must mean this is important because he’s the king of bad posture. “Do you have lube?” _

_  
  
“Am I an eighteen year old boy with two hands and lots of free time?” Dan asks, making Phil laugh and settling something in his chest.  _

_ “Point taken.” Phil pauses, sucks his bottom lip between his teeth like he might want to trap the words inside his mouth. “I could - maybe walk you through it?” _

_ “Through it?” _

_  
  
“Having something inside you.” _

_ Dan’s heart jolts, his blood turns molten and every thought he’s ever had about anything just leaves. He’s no thoughts, brain empty. Then he’s nodding, he’s scrambling to his bedside table drawer. “Yeah. I think… yeah. I think that’d be good.” _

_ “Tell me if you want to stop, yeah? Promise.” _

_  
  
“Promise.” Dan feels attractive, for once, Phil looking at him like that can’t mean anything but.  _

_  
  
He’s alone, it’s nearly four am, and he’s brave. _

_ He puts on bit more of a show than called for, takes off his t-shirt and makes sure to show Phil just how sensitive his nipples are. Phil looks a bit wrecked.  _

_ “You’re - fuck, Dan.” Phil’s voice is a messy rush of a thing, breathy and barely there. He clears his throat so he can speak again, hold Dan’s hand through it. “I can’t believe you’re real. Can you push your laptop back a bit?” _

_ Dan does as he’s told, puts his full self on display. For once he’s less obsessed with watching himself in the small corner of the screen, instead fixated on the way Phil’s watching him with this - fuck - hunger. Like he’d eat Dan alive. “Now what?” _

_ “Take your bottoms off.”  _

_ Dan lifts his hips, rolls them off with his boxers because then he isn’t left with anytime to think about more layers. He’s naked in less than five seconds, legs spread for a man.  _

_ Phil makes a noise, a desperate thing of a noise and it takes Dan from a semi to rock hard. “Lube.”  _

_ “Mhm?” _

_  
  
“Put it on your fingers, Dan, and more than you’ll think you’ll need.” He ends up with nearly an entire handful, it breaks the tension because Phil laughs and says “maybe not that much”. _

_ “You said! Make your mind up.” He wipes some of it on his sheets, leaves himself with the amount Phil deems correct.  _

_  
  
“Would’ve been like one of those slip’n’slides.”  _

_ “Phil.” Dan whines, because his voice is still working him up even if he’s saying ridiculous things.  _

_ “Yeah, yeah. Should’ve known you’d be all impatient. Just - tease yourself. See how it feels. Run your finger over your hole, but don’t push it in yet.”  _

_ “Ooookay.” Dan jumps at the cold, he should’ve warmed it up between his fingers first. After the initial shock he’s left with something that just feels.. nice. Nothing mind blowing, just something new that makes him feel bold.  _

_ Bold enough to not entirely listen to Phil - because maybe he wants to impress him a bit - he pushes the tip of his index finger in, forces his body to relax.  _

_ “Daniel.” And it’s a warning, but actually a warning at all. More of a plea. More of a please slow down because I don’t think I can take it, can’t take you and how all encompassing you are.  
_

_ “Phil.” He moans, just because he can, just because he wants Phil to know that’s what he’s thinking about. “I wish it was you instead. You have su-such pretty hands, bet they’d feel so good.”  _

_ “Can— can you go.. Dan? Can you take - are you ready -?” There’s not one full sentence in sight and it makes Dan preen, the ability to reduce Phil to nonsense and babbling and he’s barely done a thing.  _

_ “Yeah, can take the whole thing. Wanna take two. Am I doing it right, Phil? Am I good?” _

_  
  
“Yeah, Dan, you’re so fucking good.” _

_ \-  _

21st February, 2020. 

“Jesus, Dan, you look like death warmed up. Who put you in the microwave for too long?” Mel barges In whenever she pleases, once it had resulted in her catching him with his hands down his pants - it’s mentioned at least once a year. 

“Knock.”

“Knock. Who’s there.” 

“Shutup. Fuck. Phil was there.”

  
  
“Oh! You should’ve said.” She takes a running leap onto his bed after deciding this is more important than routing through his suitcase for something suitable.

Mel knew, was the only person he’d ever told about it all. 

She’d been nothing but absolutely lovely. Every time Dan had tried to blame himself she’d told him off - though she did admit Dan should’ve told Phil _why._

_“You can’t blame yourself for it forever, Dan. You know, from what you’ve told me, I think Phil would’ve understood. I think he would’ve waited for you.”_

_“I didn’t - that’s not fair. I couldn’t expect him to wait forever for me, for me to get over the word gay feeling like a fucking punch to the gut. He was so - fuck. Excited. He was so excited to meet me and I was going to be this massive disappointment, someone who couldn’t even look him in the eye in public.”_

_“And that part isn’t your fault, what is your fault is the big assumptions. You don’t know if Phil would’ve thought about you like that, you have no idea.”_

_“I know. I fucked up. I think about it every day, it’s my cross to bear - or whatever.”_

_“I don’t think you fucked up, Danny, I think you just - failed to realise.”_

“He was where?” She demands, shoving her feet beneath the covers. “Tell me all.”

  
  
“Here in my room - not like that! God, can you imagine?” He can’t, hadn’t allowed himself to. “He was just.. nice. He didn’t bring up 2009 at all, not even once. Actually he seemed to not remember me? He asked me where I was from like he didn’t already know.”

  
  
“Maybe it’s an act? Maybe he’s trying to protect himself.” Mel points out, “it’s probably shit on his end. He was the one who got left out of the decision making.” 

“Yeah, maybe. There was just zero recognition in his eyes and I don’t know if he’s that good an actor.” He’d never learnt how Phil could just switch all of his features into neutral mode. 

“It’s a good thing? Maybe. The last thing you want it all this awkward tension at a place like this.” Mel shuffles up the bed, gives Dan a little squeeze. “You ok?”

  
  
“Yeah, just wasn’t expecting it.I literally smacked into him in a hallway.” 

“You know you have a panel together today? That’s what I was coming in here to tell you, people.. a few people, were sending in questions about the year that shall not be named.” She squeezes tighter because she knows Dan _will_ try to escape.

“I’m going home, I don’t care. I’m leaving and they can burn all the posters with my face.” He can get a flight soon, hopefully. Failing that he can swim home he’s a long - essentially - hairless man. It’ll work.

“Oh, stop it. They’re all pre-asked question, i’ve told the moderator to not ask you any of them. It’l be fine. You and Phil are on opposite ends up the worlds longest table.” She’s trying to be reassuring, and it’s only working at about fifty percent “Have you really not spoken to him even once since 2009?”

“No. Not technically, not _spoke_.” 

-

November 20th, 2009

_Dan,_

_Sorry. God. This is bit weird, isn’t it? I just don’t know how else to do this. You’re sort of like.. gone.Who writes letters anymore, no one, me. The queen? She probably doesn’t write her own letters, probably hires 26 people - each one dedicated to writing a letter of the alphabet each._

_I’m rambling in a letter, sorry. I’m just trying to tell you things and I don’t know how to tell you things without saying them from my mouth, I guess._

_I guess for a few hours I thought you were dead? But deep down I knew that wasn’t actually true. You were acting a bit off on our Skype call and I probably should've known then that something more was up than just first time meeting nerves. I know you’re not actually dead now cos someone uploaded a recent photo with you in it, sorry, that’s creepy. I just sort of kept checking your friends with open profiles to make sure. Now I know! So i’ll stop doing that._

_I’m sorry if I came on too strong, because I know I can be like that. I should’ve toned it down, especially after you told me about your parents, but I couldn’t..I just couldn’t force myself to be less excited when I was speaking to you. I couldn’t communicate with my brain and make it stop telling me to say you’re pretty, or whatever other things I said. I can’t remember sometimes._

_I know this thing was scary..I know. And I’m never going to hold it against you, really. I do wish you’d maybe have spoke to me more about things, because maybe then i’d understand this a bit more. I think I sort of understand but it’s like a puzzle with a missing piece, or something. Like i’ve gotten all the way into a 1000 piece jigsaw only to discover one piece is missing. sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, please don’t feel guilty. Maybe one day you can come back and tell me, or not. That’s up to you. I won’t ever try to force you. If you wanna come back and upload your videos and stuff I won’t try to interact. I’ll unfollow you from everything and let you come to me - if you ever want to._

_I won’t pretend I wasn’t upset, because I was. But that doesn’t matter now because it’s not something I can change. Somethings just don’t work out and that’s.. ok. It has to be ok. I’m fine, and I hope you're fine, too. More than fine._

_This letter is just a long long way to say I don’t hate you. Because I bet that’s what you’re thinking - you’re in a big one of your spirals. I don’t, I really dont. I don't think I could in a million years. You were really special to me and though it didn’t go further, I just wanna say.. thankyou?  
_

_Yeah, thankyou. You made me happy and that’s all that matters._

_I got a train ticket ages ago in like.. ha. I don’t know. I wanted you to use it before Christmas and come visit me again. I’ve put it in here if you wanna use it. Not to see me. Just to see Manchester. See if you wanna come here for uni, it’s a nice place._

_I hope one day you get to be who you want to be, Dan. I think you really properly deserve it._

_Love_

_Phil x._




21st February, 2020. 

**Twitter: @AmazingPhil is following you!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you want to reblog on tumblr i really do appreciate it!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/629351104224903168/can-we-try-again-chapter-2-fictropes)
> 
> mostly written at 4am in a diet coke fuelled frenzy so i’m not liable for any mistakes. Not every chapter will be THIS long i'm just setting a huge stage for some huge pining. if i ever suggest i will have any sort of schedule agian... kill me?
> 
> I believe in my heart of hearts than Phil could actually never be that mean 2 dan so the angst in this fic is not going to come from screaming and shouting and Phil being ignorant, (Sorry if that's what you were looking for !|) it will be in like soft sad moments :(. also i can't do complete angst and serious because I get off 2 much on people calling me funny<3
> 
> as always, lemme know your THOUGHTS <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr if u wanna say hi :)](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> hi! just wanted to start this off with THANKYOU! so many people have been so supportive about this fic, genuinely surprised by how many people liked this concept! I am reading all of your comments and they're all making my heart feel very warm<3 i've just decided to NOT reply to them due to my brain (for once) knowing the entire plot to this fic and wanting to spoil it. it's like reply to this comment telling them everything that's going to happen, they're nice and excited.. they deserve it. so in the interest of not spoiling this i'm gonna wait till the end to reply. But PLEASE do keep commenting as i love to read them all so so much!!!

25th February, 2020

_History repeats itself._

Dan slides into Phil’s dm’s.

**@DanielHowell: now that we’re back in England and I’m aware that there’s a dog I haven’t been able to hold in my arms like a baby.. can I come see? I will literally pay an entrance fee.**

**@AmazingPhil: Hmm, let me check my schedule. I don’t think i’ve reached my quota of curly haired men this week, but i’ll have to double check.**

**@DanielHowell: I am fully prepared to fight, actually.**

**@AmazingPhil: No violence, pleae. I can do.. Friday afternoon?**

**@DanielHowell: Park?**

**  
  
@AmazingPhil: My apartment? I mean, we’d probably stand out like a sore thumb and I have been doing a very good job at keeping Dan a secret.**

**@DanielHowell: Oh! Sure. I suppose I am too tall to hide in the bushes.**

**@AmazingPhil: You tried?**

**  
  
@DanielHowell: Huh?**

**  
  
@AmazingPhil: To hide in some bushes.. no actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know what you get up to.**

**  
  
@DanielHowell: No! Shutup, idiot. I’m perfectly fine without a bush.**

**@AmazingPhil: You know how that sounded, yeah?  
**

**@DanielHowell: ..yeah.**

**@AmazingPhil: hehe! :)**

**-**

****28th February, 2020

Phil’s apartment is even whackier in real life than it is in the videos, every surface is littered with knick-knacks and it’s making the minimalist in Dan scream. “What is this?”

  
  
“A friend!” 

“It’s a sock with eyes. Phil. Actual googly eyes glued on, why’s it in a fucking vase?” Dan prods at it, it stays stubbornly stood up. 

“A friend.” Phil repeats, “anyway, you’re not here to judge my great decor, you’re here to meet dog you.” 

He’s been dead weird and secretive about it, like he had to check Dan was a good person before they met. “Where is this tiny me exactly?”

  
  
“My bed, taking a nap. He is a very sleepy dog, which works out well considering i’m a very sleepy human.” Phil’s been content to just hang back and watch, let Dan crash about his apartment like a bull in a china shop. It feels very dream-like, this ability to reach out and touch possessions that belong to someone he’d absolutely - most definitely - once loved. 

There’s not a doubt in Dan’s mind about that anymore. He’d convinced himself for years that it was just the fanboy in him, that hewas too young to be feeling something that big. Then as he grew older, as he began to take stock of all his own feelings and emotions, he realised that his age meant fuck all. He could be in love and in love he had been. He rolled it about a bit, played with the thought, then let it settle down warmly in his chest. 

He’s been in love at least once in his life, and wasn’t that a nice thought.

“Are you vetting me? Wanna pat me down and make sure i’m not stowing in a dog eating snake?” Dan turns on the spot, gives Phil the full 360 of his bougie outfit. He’d gone a bit all out - a lot all out - trying to bring himself back from the whole romper ordeal. He was wearing Alexander Mcqueen, jeans tight enough to leave lines in his skin if he sat down in them for too long. It was a carefully constructed outfit that was seemingly doing nothing for Phil, he hadn't looked at Dan’s arse even once. All Phil had commented on was the fact he was going to get covered in dog hair. 

“Yeah, c’mere.” Phil raises en eyebrow, a cheeky thing of an eyebrow. There’s no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing. “Let me pat you down.”

“What?” Dan splutters, all the bravado he’d once had making a swift exit out the door and into the streets - where Dan thinks it can at least do the decent thing of crashing into someone who needs it. “Shutup.” 

“What? I take my dog very seriously.” Phil pushes himself up off the wall, suddenly in front of Dan looking like a member of airport security. “Arms up, please.”

  
  
Dan has no idea what’s happening, his brain is waving a tiny flag - begging him to push the panic button. He doesn’t know, so all he can think to do is as he’s told. His arms fly up, looking a bit too enthusiastic to be patted down, to be touched up (which he is, but no one else needs to know that.) 

Phil laughs, like he hadn’t been the one to initiate this in the first place. “Stupid,” he mumbles, then he’s got two hands on Dan’s wrists, gently pushing them back down to his sides and then he just - stays. Stays there not quite holding Dan’s hands, but still holding.. something. “Just promise me you haven’t got loads of treats in your pockets that you’re going to use to try and make him love you more than me?”  


  
Everything is doomed, everything reminds him of 2009. Dan’s brain has decided to remember every single word Phil had ever said back then, clings onto it with greedy little hands. 

“Promise.” 

  
  
“Good.” Phil smiles.

It’s here that Dan realises he wasn’t once _in_ love, but that he still is. 

-

1st October, 2009. 

_“Wanna know a secret?” Phil asks, tipping forwards until Dan’s just got a screen of eyeball - he still hates that he can’t tell if there’s more than just the blue._

_  
  
“Is is that you’re incredibly drunk?”_

_  
  
“No!”_

_  
  
“But you are.”_

_  
“Shitfaced.” Phil agrees with a giggle, pulling back to give Dan the full face puppy dog thing he’s got going on tonight. He pushes a hand through his fringe, forcing it into some makeshift quiff that’s doing more for Dan than he cares to admit. “But that’s not the secret.”  
_

_  
“Oh no, have you done something bad? Am I gonna see you on the news tomorrow for stealing a dog from someones garden?” Dan’s asks, trying to distract himself from all the thoughts of want._

_“No! I’d never.” Phil pouts, his bottom lip is stained red - wine drunk - which means he’s been somewhere a bit more classy than just a random twenty year olds house._

_“Where’d you go?” Dan props himself up with a million pillows, his bare shoulders on display because he wants Phil to see. He wants Phil to look and to want and to make Dan stop feeling like a fucking freak._

_“Huh? Oh! Mum and dads friends party, they’re emigrating to Australia.” Phil distracts himself, repeats the word ‘“Australia” over and over again with a dodgy accent. “Words are fun!”_

_“Sometimes.” Dan says, because sometimes they hurt and are not fun at all._

_“Oh! Stop talking. I’m telling you my secret.” Phil remembers, but not before repeating Australia just one more time._

_“The floor is yours.”_

_“Nooo, the floor is yours cos it’s in your house and not in my house. It’d be weird if the floor to your house was actually the floor to mine.. that’d be like we’re living in the same house. We’re not though, cos if we were i’d definitely know.” Phil has three thousands different trains of thought at all times, boards one without even looking at the announcement board to see where it’s going. “If you were here i’d be kissing you and not Skyping with you. Wah - c’mere.”_

_  
  
“Just a couple more weeks.” Dan’s heart does something funny atthe whole kiss thing, he drags his finger along his bottom lip and tries to imagine what Phil’s lips would feel like pressed there. _

_“Distracting… hands. Stop it. I’m telling you my secret!”_

_“Fucking hell, Phil. You’ve told me you have a secret like twelve billion times but not actually told me the secret.” He tries to sound mad, but it comes out disgustingly fond. He sort of wants to record this moment for light blackmail, Phil’s probably about to tell him he’s furry or admit to wanting Dan to piss on him - or something._

_“Ooook, Mr grumpy.” Phil grins, tongue between his teeth - Dan’s favourite sort of smile - the smile only he gets to see. “My secret is.. I think i’m in love with you!”_

_“Phil I -“and it’s none of the things he’d been expecting, in fact it’s the last. It’s the thing that somehow lifts Dan’s heart whilst smashing it to a pulp at the same time._

_“No!Not even think. Am. I am in love with you.” Phil decides. “And I know we haven’t met but that doesn’t even matter, cos I know. I just know this it what it’s supposed to feel like. My heart feels happy whenever I think about you, which means it’s always happy cos i’m always thinking about you.”_

_“Jesus Christ, Phil.” Dan stutters out, sort of - barely. It’s more a string of noises that are meant to be words. “You can’t just-“_

_  
  
It doesn’t matter what he can’t just, because Dan looks up from where he’d been staring at the keyboard, with bright red cheeks and a pounding heart,to find Phil fast asleep. He takes a screenshot, saves it as ‘the day he told me’. _

\- 

2nd October, 2009

**How’s the hangover?**

**  
  
Noooooooooo.:(I don't exist i am gone from this mortal plane and i live with the worms in my garden**

**I think worms exist in this mortal plane**

**Shut it, smart arse.i am sick and you should be telling me all about how i’m good to comfort me :3**

**ok, you’re good … at being stupid**

**Oi! No pizza for dan >:l**

**Yh yh. Do u remember our Skype call last night?  
**

**  
… we skyped?**

**  
  
omg xD how much did you actually have?  
**

**An entire grape tree of sexy sexy wine**

**grapes do not grow on trees**

**ur mum grows on trees**

-

****28th February, 2020

_“Oh.”_ Dan gasps, “oh my fucking god, Phil.” 

“I know.” 

There’s a tiny little dog running towards him, Dan drops to his knees immediately to give Dog Dan everything he wants. He’s so small, microscopic. “I love him.” 

“He is very loveable.”

  
  
Dog Dan doesn’t roll over onto his back and demand tummy rubs like most dogs, instead his repeatedly butts his tiny head into Dan’s massive hand until he gets the hint and scratches his ears. “Oh my god,” he repeats, absolutely on the verge of tears because this is easily top two moments of his life. 

The first being Phil - just Phil, all of him. 

“Just don’t stop now you’ve started.” Phil isn’t even making any sense, until Dan stops moving his hand and he then suddenly makes perfect sense. Dog Dan isn’t a fan of losing out on even a second of potential ear scratches, he cries and whines and knocks into Dan’s hand until he starts again. 

“Oh! Oh no,” Dan coos, the voice he uses for dogs and babies and once a little lamb he’d met on a school trip. “I know, it won’t do, will it? I can’t ever stop because good boys should get everything they want! Yes they should, yes they should.” 

“You’re going to give him a complex.” Phil sighs, plopping down beside Dan to take over ear scratching duty. 

“What? That’s not what you think it means.”

  
  
“What isn’t?”

  
  
“Giving someone a complex is like - not that. It means.. you say something intended to be negative to someone and then they fixate on it. Like when people said being gay was shit and awful and therefore I was shit and awful, gave me a complex.” Dan didn’t mean to say it, but the words were now out in the open and he could hardly eat them and swallow them back down. 

“Oh. Well, then. You’re going to give him.. ear scratching tendencies.” Phil says nothing, but he does give Dan the softest look he’s ever seen in his entire life - It’s enough of a look to make his one brain cell make a run for it whilst he’s distracted. 

“I’m sure someone’s already given him that.” He lightly bashes their shoulders together, relishes in all these little touchy feely moments that sometimes make him think Phil _must_ remember. Because Phil isn’t like this - from what he’s seen, from what Phil’s told him - he’s awkward and avoids contact wherever possible. He’d rather jam his fingers in his pocket at the most awkward angle than have any one accidentally brush his hand. 

He isn’t tactile in real life, hugs at meet-and-greets don’t count. Dan apparently doesn’t count. 

“Maybe. I can’t help it! He’s so cute, whenever he demands attention I just cave.” Dog Dan clambering onto his lap and he feels like he could float on air if he tried.

“Oh my god, does this mean he likes me?” He curls up in the cross of Dan’s legs, entirely content. 

“I think it’s because you’re so warm, he’s probably drawn to it.” Phil shrugs, pushes himself back up onto his feet. “You have that warm soft doggy aura.” 

Dan doesn’t know what to do with that. He thinks about it, prods at it, tries to work out exactly what Phil had meant. Warm. Phil thinks he’s warm. He thinks Dan omits a soft, warm aura and now he wants to cry all over again. 

Dan’s a lot fucked. 

“He’ll stay there for hours, if you let him.”

  
  
“I- fuck. I really need a wee.” Dan feels like the worst person on the planet, disturbing this angels sleep. “Doesn’t matter, i’ll piss myself.”

“Er - yeah. It absolutely does matter! You are not pissing through onto my carpet, you horrible boy.” Phil crouches down in front of him, gently scoops dog Dan up into his arms. He’d been right about the whole being able to hold him like a baby thing.

“Fine.” They’re eye level now, just staring at each other in a way that should be uncomfortable put isn’t. Dan nearly ruins it all by reaching out and doing something stupid like -

Phil reaches out, a finger brushing just below Dan’s eye. “Eyelash.” He explains, drawing back and holding it out in offering, “make a wish.” 

Dan wishes for something that’ll likely never come true. 

“Fuck. I should’ve wished for an empty bladder.”

  
  
“Go to the toilet, I will kill you and so will my landlord.” 

-

16th September, 2009

**_:o your eyelashes look super long in that photo. stop being so damn pretty Dan Howell_ **

**_:O u commented that ON the photo 2!!! Are u trying to tell me something? (also how the fuck are you even seeing my eyelashes?!!?!?!)_ **

**_  
erm.. i zoomed in? fight me. plus.. yeh, i’m trying to tell you.. i think u look like a moose_ **

**_WHAT!_ **

**_xD did u know mooses have this random skin flap underneath their chin? thy use it 2 scent people for mating season… :P_ **

**_are u saying you want me to scent u for mating season?_ **

**_i’m not not saying that_ **

**_-_ **

28th February, 2020.

Dog Dan is as sleepy as Phil had told him. When Dan comes back from the toilet they play, play for about twenty minutes before he deems he’s had enough and hops up onto the sofa. 

“Wasn’t he literally asleep before I got here?” Dan watches him spin around in circles until he finds the exact right spot to flop down in, he ends up right in the corner all curled up in himself. 

“He’s tiny, Dan, he needs to rest all the time cos his body can’t contain that much energy.” Phil explains, like he’s right and that’s how it works. 

Dan just agrees, “Yeah, that seems correct.”

“You hungry?”

  
  
“I am always hungry, Phil - as someone with a massive body that can contain lots of energy.” Dan hadn’t been expecting a lunch invite, he wasn’t prepared for spending this long with Phil. He felt very uninteresting all of a sudden, like he couldn’t possibly have enough talking points to keep Phil entertained. 

“Come on then.”

Dan follows him through into the kitchen. It’s not quite as eclectic as the living room but there’s still a few things dotted around that scream Phil Lester lives here. Namely, “Is this a penis magnet?”

It’s stuck to his fridge, holding up a list of future video ideas:

  1. ****~~**_cheese?_**~~ ** _Fashion_**
  2. ******_bring a friend into the baking series (find a friend)_**
  3. ******_more gay talk_**
  4. ******_i order everything?_**
  5. ****~~**dog dan?**~~ **_finally talk about that one time (need permission)_**
  6. ******_weird things i did as a child part 1000000_**
  7. ******_sleepless night with Phil_**
  8. ******_Uncomfortable ASMR_**
  9. ******_Teach the audience. (i have two degrees!)_**



“Oh! Yeah, it is.” Phil joins him, once again touching at two different points - shoulders and elbows -and Dan needs him to stop doing that because he’ll self-combust. “I made it at a pottery class, the teacher wasn’t too happy but I paid to be there so I could actually do whatever I wanted.”

  
  
“It - hm. Bit out of proportion.”

  
  
“What?” Phil squawks, loud and right down his ear. “How?”

  
  
“It’s just.. balls. Like it’s a massive set of balls with a bit of a dick.” Dan points out, runs his finger along said balls - and it’s not the weirdest way he’s spent a Friday afternoon.

  
  
“Huh.” Phil pushes him to the side, properly looks at his dick abomination. “You’re right. What do you want? I have.. nothing.”

He swings the fridge door open, very nearly knocking Dan out in the process. “Nothing?” He asks, once he’s recovered from the latest in the long line of near death experiences. 

“I haven’t been shopping since I got back. I have.. soup.” Phil is hidden by the door, but Dan can quite clearly hear the frown.

“That’s fine, soup slaps. Let’s have soup.”

  
  
Phil’s face appears from behind the fridge, absolutely incredulous. “Soup does not - you’re vile. Soup is literally just wet, it’s like eating a big pile of wet. I love eating thick water.”

  
  
“It’s not thi- why do you even have it if you hate it so much?”

“I don’t know, I order food online and they didn’t have something I wanted so they substituted it for this monstrosity…” he trails off, comes back with “we should order something.”

“No, it’s fine. I can do soup.” Dan makes a grabby hand for it, Phil instantly places it on top of the fridge with enough force to make it roll all the way to the back and out of reach of the both of them. “Well now that’s there for ever.”

  
  
“A present for my landlord, some mouldy thick water.” Phil doesn’t even attempt to get it back, apparently accepting of his new soup roommate. “Dog Dan will be happy, he would’ve patted your leg like hello.. why aren’t you feeding me a literal handful of soup?”

“You should’ve said that in the first place, I would’ve agreed immediately to takeaway if I thought I was disappointing him.” He stands up on his tip-toes, makes one last ditch attempt to grab the container and comes away with a handful of - slime?

  
  
“Phil, what the fuck.”

  
  
“Oh! There it is. I was making a video and I must’ve put it there whilst I was getting a drink.” He takes it off Dan, opens the container and is lost to it for a good five minutes. 

Dan just watches, watches this weird dude play with slime and be too attractive whilst doing it. His phone dings on the counter, Dan’s eyes stray to it like he’s allowed to just be checking up on Phil’s texts. His brain and mouth are working at a complete disconnect today so it’s mainly not his fault when he blurts out, “is that grindr?”

  
  
“No!” 

“The next amazingphil spon?”

  
  
“Oh, yeah.” Phil snorts, putting the slime away and instead picking up his phone to hide it from nosy boys called Dan. “Hey guys! Can you please sponsor me, I believe your gay hookup app is perfect for my audience of fifty percent twelve year olds.” 

“I don’t know! It just looked very much like grindr.”

  
  
“No. You know I-“ he does not finish his sentence, even though Dan desperately wants him to. He knows _what_?  “Me and dating sites are very much not friends.”

-

29th September, 2020

_“Does everyone know you’re..” He can’t even say it, the word gets lodged in his throat. He feels like such a coward, like he’s somehow letting Phil down in twelve separate ways at once._

_“Yeah.” Phil smiles, because he knows what Dan means without him even saying it._

_“I sort of went to uni knowing and did some.. stuff. Maybe let a boy, or two, come home with me once or twice.” He looks a little bit coy admitting it, maybe it’s because he knows Dan’s a jealous bastard._

_“And your parents just.. knew?”_

_“My mum told me she wasn’t born yesterday, she also left apamphlet on my bed from the doctors about how to practise safe sex. She circled the part about men with men and how they still need condoms, even though pregnancy doesn’t exist std’s still do.” Phil looks perfectly amused, like it was a funny anecdote and not something life-ruining. Dan doesn’t know what his mum would do, probably not that._

_“I think I would’ve died.” Dan says, not even joking._

_“It was a bit awkward, but it was nice to know she.. cared? I think that was her way of saying it’s ok but be safe you stupid slutty prat. She didn’t say slutty, but I think I was exhibiting very slutty behaviour under her roof.”Dan doesn’t like thinking about Phil with anyone, even if they were people who existed before him. He hopes one day he’ll grow out of it, this jealously that’s eats away at him and makes him which he was brave enough to just claim Phil in public, hold his hand outside._

_“Amazingphil is a slut? I would never have guessed after your toxic video.” It was a very big talking point in Dan’s head. The taped up area was very interested in discussing it, whilst the bees and the sword men were interested in stabbing it to death and burying it in the garden._

_“Hey! Shutup, you love that video. You’re every single view on that video, actually.”_

_Dan shrugs, but he doesn’t disagree. He instead goes back to the start, “do your friends?”  
_

_  
“Yeah, but not cos I told them. I sort of listed mypreferences on a dating site when I got to uni, was hoping to reinvent myself on plenty of fish. A mate from back home found it, sent it around on msn.” He doesn't sound sad about the fact they know, just sad about the fact he couldn’t tell them how he wanted to tell them - Dan can’t relate._

_“Ouch. Bit shitty.”_

_  
  
“Na, I mean, I don’t think he understood the .. gravity of the situation. I think the gay thing was maybe actually an after thought he was more like look guys Phil’s on a dating website. There was one person, he like.. got all weird with me. In a horrible way, actually. I am no longer friends with him, but that’s fine.” He sounds like he genuinely means it, too. That finding out a friend could hate you for something as basic as just.. who you are isn’t that big a deal to him. “It was shit, don’t get me wrong. I felt awful because i’d known him for years.” Alright, maybe not, maybe he is sad. _

_“That’s fucked up. I bet he was one of those ones who were like oh you’re gay so you must fancy me, even though they look like a packet of ham.”_

_Phil giggles - that singular trace of sadness now nowhere to be seen - and Dan thinks his job here is done._

_-_

28th February, 2020

“If I eat one more thing then I will absolutely die on your sofa, you’ll have to explain this dead body to the police. They’ll open me up and all my arteries will just be made out of cheese.” Dan’s tight jeans seems like a terrible idea now, the button is digging into his skin and probably leaving behind a permanent mark - an extra belly button 

“You’re weak, where’s you dessert stomach?” Phil had left him to feed dog Dan leftovers so he could microwave some cookies, upon returning he told Dan off _“if that dog throws up in my bed tonight I will be calling you to come clean it up”._

“It’s full with excess cheese, it spilt over from my regular stomach.” There’s too much comfort involved in all of this, too much familiarity. Its as though Phil knows who is he but is unwilling to admit to it, just wants Dan here without the confrontation. But then he’ll ask questions about things that he should already know, and Dan isn’t so sure Phil remembers him at all. 

“Weak.” Phil scoffs, shoving a cookie into his mouth and speaking around the crumbs. “I will eat all of these, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  
  
Dan does not speak, Phil devours all four. 

“Are you sure I can’t steal your dog, just for one night? He can be in my comeback video, I won’t even tell anyone he's yours. I want all my collabs to be just dogs, that’s my legacy.” He’s got a bundle of fur on his lap again, he’s dreaming and every so often will let out a little squeak and an accompanying paw kick.

“Positive, sorry.” Phil doesn’t sound apologetic at all. “Are you thinking of coming back, then?”

  
  
“You.. know i’m not there?”

“Erm.” Phil coughs, “well, yeah. People talk. I know who you are, Dan, we’re both two gay British youtubers with a history of emo fringes. It’s hard to not know who you are.”

  
  
Dan wants to say you knew me before I was the gay youtuber, you know me as a rampant ball of internalised homophobia who lived in a brown box room and wanted nothing more than.. _you._

“Well, I suppose that actually makes sense; Doubt you’re in the habit of inviting complete strangers into your apartment to play with your secret dog and look at your penis magnet.” Dog Dan agrees, if the kick to Dan’s stomach is anything to go by. 

“Penis, yes. Penis magnet, no.” Phil just says, outloud, from his mouth. 

“Phil!” Dan laughs, proper head thrown back hurts to breathe sort of laugh. Phil joins in and it’s everything Dan had imagined them being like back in 2009, how often he’d thought about just laughing together, saying stupid things and knowing he'd be safe.

“Sorry, sorry. I don't know where that came from. I don’t invite people inside to look at my penis, I promise.” 

“No, no. Now the whole Grindr notification makes sense.”

  
  
“It wasn’t grindr!” Phil claims for a second time, and Dan wants to believe him for the sake of the jealousy that’s still hanging around in the now untaped Phil area of his brain.

“You don’t have to justify yourself to me.” Dan has to justify himself to himself later on when he gets home, confront everything that’s going on inside his mind right now, sort it out into neat little files with labels like - _why I can’t have Phil, why you should apologise to Phil, just kiss Phil and think about the consequences later._

“Whatever. You’re so annoying, don’t come back.” He curls onto his side, looks up at Dan through his eyelashes like he’s purposefully trying to make him forget the English language. “The video was really great, by the way. I don’t think I ever said.” 

“Oh, thankyou. Yours, too. Very you.” He’s got something like hope settling in for this new ride, making him feel warm all over. “Is it weird that I think it should’ve been longer?”

  
  
“No, I get it.” Phil shrugs, “I always feels like there's this piece missing in a lot of my videos.” 

-

June 13th, 2019

_“And you want to upload it now?” Mel asks, fishing._

_“Yes, yes. I’ve told you a million times I can’t talk about Phil, I just - can’t. Can’t do that to him.” He’d dipped his toes into the idea, yanked them out immediately. “That’s a private thing between us, I haven’t even told him everything.. I can’t tell millions of people on the Internet before I tell him.”  
_

_  
“He’s a part of your story, isn’t he?” He’s grateful this is a phonecall, that Mel can’t see the self-inflicted heart break all over his face._

_“Yeah, obviously. Of course. But it’s not just my story, Mel, it’s his, too. I’m going to upload it how it is, maybe one day.. I don’t know. Maybe one day i’ll upload an extended version.”_

_“Alright, alright. Proud of you, Danny.”_

_-_

28th February, 2020

“Do you even want to go back to youtube?”

“Yeah, I think so. I just don’t know how to do, I’ve been gone for so long. Feel like I have to make something big and amazing but that’s a lot of pressure, so then I crumble and put it off for even longer. It’s a very fun circle to exist in.” He twirls the fur of dog Dan’s tail around his finger, watches as his all black outfit becomes progressively whiter. 

“Do you maybe.. wanna come back not alone? I mean, i’m always getting asked if we’ll ever collab. I think it’s because we’re both gay and not because of the.. non-existent interaction.” Phil snorts, they really have never replied to a single tweet, never even liked one. “And both British, of course. It might be a bit less overwhelming to share the spotlight with someone, it can even be over on mine. A light intro back into it.”

Dan considers it, let’s it filter through his one brain cell. “I- yeah, fuck it. You can be celebrity dog number two.” He’s not even interested in going back to youtube, it’s just the eighteen year old in him who was always desperate to film a video with _the_ amazingphil. 

“Yeah?” And it was obviously the right answers because Phil's face absolutely lights up, all the starsdisappearing from the sky and finding a home in Phil’s eyes. “I don’t have like an idea, we’ll have to brainstorm.”

  
  
“You mean we can’t do redacted cheese fashion?”

  
  
“You read my list? You little thief, I know my ideas are worth millions and you came here to steal them.” Phil accuses, but the stars are still there and Dan will do anything in his power to make sure they never leave.

“I don’t think anyone on earth can understand that list but you, Phil.”

“It’s in my secret phorse code.”

  
  
“I changed my mind, no collab. I’m leaving, Dog Dan says he must leave, too. This is babuse.”

“Babuse?” Phil asks, tipping his head to the side. 

“I have no idea what I just said, honestly. My mouth isn’t like with it today.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

-

“So, we’ll brainstorm. Message me if you think of anything?” It’s seven hours later and Dan’s finally leaving, he’s called an uber. It was going to arrive anytime soon and all Dan can think about is how much he wants to stay. 

  
  
“Yeah, i’ll go put my thinking cap on.”

“As opposed to the dunce hat you’ve been sporting all day?” Phil asks, sucking his cheeks in in an attempt to not laugh at his own joke. 

“Babuse.” He repeats, neither of them understand what it mean but it just feels right - somehow. 

“Babuse.” Phil agrees, then he’s doing it again. Yanking Dan forwards into a hug, somehow bigger than the last one. He could get used to it, this whole business of Phil just holding him.  
  


“I’ll see you..?”

  
  
“Tomorrow.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you wanna reblog on tumblr!I really do appreciate any support!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/629447103292358656/can-we-try-again-chapter-3-fictropes)
> 
> oooook. so as u may have seen this is now going to be 7 chapters. if you follow me on tumblr you may have seen my plan! essentially i'm going to upload this over the course of a week, so one chapter a day :). no waiting a week for it or anything! I'm just super like.. fixated on this and wanna get it done lol. 
> 
> also i am 50% making up dates in 2009 lmao. 
> 
> as always... lemme know your thoughts<3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if u wanna scream at me on tumblr](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> tw: homophobia

5th December, 2009

_Phil’s right, Manchester is nice._

_His first reaction had been to just give the tickets to someone else, to anyone else. To rip them up and - eat them. That thought had been a weird one, he hadn’t enjoyed the mental gymnastics of his brain trying to convince him that that was a good idea. Something about crime and punishment - we sentence you to one train ticket lunch for your ghosting of Phil Lester._

_He hadn’t given them away, definitely hadn’t eaten them, just kept them locked up in a box until it got to December 1st and he decided to just go, carried them around in his hoodie pocket until the morning of December 5th. The nerves were still there, it was still a big overwhelming thing, there was just no one there at the other end of the line to say hello._

_The moment he arrives at the station he expects to see a random Phil out in the wild. As promised, he isn’t on the platform and Dan doesn’t know how to feel about it. It’s empty enough that he’d spot him straight away, a tall black haired man who insists on wearing the brightest colours known to man would be immediately identifiable. He still hangs around for a bit longer than he should, the ticket guard men people at the top of the platform shooting him suspicious looks. He leaves after ten minutes, Phil-less._

_After their last Skype call, the curtain call of their relationship - both of them appearing in each others lives together for one last time -Phil had sent him an itinerary._

**_D &P on tour (lads lads lads) _ **

  1. ******_Starbucks. Caramel everything._**
  2. ******_eye eye Daniel. Or the (great-ish) eye of Manchester. Get ready for thrilling views such as..the top of some shops! A pigeon with one foot! Me!_**
  3. ******_i will show u round the uni buildings, if you want <3_**
  4. ******_apple shop 4 selfies because that’s the hip thing to do and we’re hip….. replacements._**
  5. ******_milkshakes. if there’s any ingredient that sounds even 1% healthy I will sue_**
  6. ******_a secret_**
  7. ******_My house (it isn’t haunted i promise. if it is then that's ok cos i’ll protect you)_**



_Naturally Dan follows the list, a seven stop tour of his first ever heartbreak.Or six if you take into consideration Dan has no idea what the fuck he’d meant by a secret. No, - five -he obviously isn’t going to turn up at Phil’s door._

_Maybe he should, maybe he should knock and Phil will answer and they’ll just act like last month hadn’t happened. This was the first time they’d ever met, it was always supposed to be the first time they met - 19th October was just fake day on the calendar._

_He’s in a world of his own, moving down the streets of Manchester like a snail who’s taken sleeping pills._

_“Move, fag.” Someone slams into him, both physically and emotionally. It’s like he can’t step outside without someone reminding him of who he really is and why it’s bad._

_He doesn’t go and knock on Phil’s door._

_He goes to Starbucks, orders something containing too much caramel and finds a seat as far away as possible from everyone else. His hands are shaky, he doesn’t know how to stop them and usually he’d call Phil but he can’t because he’s cut that option off for himself. He takes deeps breaths, stares at his phone even though it’s literally just open on the google homepage._

**_why am I gay?_ **

_Erase._

**_How to not look gay_ **

_Erase._

**_How to apologise to people_ **

_Erase. Erase. Erase._

_It takes fifteen minutes for him to stop feeling like everyone is staring at him, to stop feeling like he’s a freak who’d walked into Starbucks with a horse and demanded they make it some special horse coffee._

_He doesn’t search for anything in the end, just types and deletes and types and deletes on some special merry-go-round of why is my head so fucked and why can’t I experience feelings like a normal person._

_The coffee is incredibly sweet, Dan feels the sugar on his teeth. He’d told Phil once that it was his absolute favourite, and it had been, but now it’s like his tongue is punishing him - taking away his caramel loving tastebud privilege._

_He dumps half of it in the bin, feels bad for not tipping it away because the poor person who empties it is going to end up with a wet surprise._

_He feels bad for a lot of things though, so what’s one more to add the list._

_The Manchester eye is not a fun experience. The rooftops of Manchester are much less impressive when you have this massive empty space beside you. It’s entirely dead, a tourist attraction that’ll probably crash and burn soon. It’s in the weirdest place of all time, there’s literally nothing to see unless you count the hotel in which he’d definitely witnessed an affair. That was sort of fun, the bleakest highlight of the bleakest day._

_He could’ve held Phil’s hand in here, he could’ve been brave in a very tiny way. He hates how he has to think of Phil in past tense now, there’s no more we’re going to do this or we should do that. It’s just a brain full of memories that don’t fit behind the tape, roam free and live to remind him constantly of his regret._

_There’s this constant thought of turning around, of Phil being behind him with a sheepish expression on his face. He sort of wants fate to intervene for once, not that he believes in it. He wants to bump into him and then maybe he won’t ever have to explain why he’d done it and - it’s whatever. It’s not going to happen because the world hates him, is actively conspiring against him at every turn and when he trips up a step it just proves his point._

_“You alright, love?” And old woman helps him back to his feet, reaches up to pat his cheek. “You be careful out there, never know what can happen next!”_

_Ego and knee bruised, he goes to the apple shop. He resolutely misses the university tours. He can’t come to uni here, he can’t spend all of his time in this paralysed state of fear, expecting to bump into Phil every second of every day._

_He takes one selfie, looks at how miserable his stupid face looks, how miserable his entire body looks and deletes it. It’s awkward taking them by yourself anyway, the screen is too big and it looks like there should be someone stood next to him._

_Milkshake, check. Once again the sugar annihilates him._

_The secret is still a secret and in replacement of not knowing he just takes himself back to the train station, sits there a great sulking heap of a man._

_Phil’s house.. he wishes._

_-_

Febuary, 2020. 

**@Amazingphil: when I said tomorrow I think I was just trying to be dramatic, I have actual things to do. Soz.**

**@DanielHowell: Unprofessional**

**@AmazingPhil: Hey! Rude! I am actually being so professional right now, i’m emptying my bins and sorting the recyclables.**

**@DanielHowell: Oh, so you’re cancelling on me to sort out your bins? I get it. Rubbish > Dan. **

**@AmazingPhil: Forgot you were so dramatic.**

**  
  
@AmazingPhil: Cos I haven’t seen a video of yours for a while, I mean.**

**@DanielHowell: Ooooook, enough with the personal attacks. I’m not even in the room to defend myself.**

**@AmazingPhil: You are in my dms tho.**

**@DanielHowell: ;).**

-

“Jesus fucking Christ on a bicycle , should I expect a wedding invite by the end of next week?” Mels’ invaded his apartment, a load of papers bundled up in her arms regarding the next merch launch. 

“Haha, a comedian.” Dan’s riffling through them, signing on the dotted lines without really reading anything. He’s at the point now where he’s signed so many things over the past decade that he strongly believes if anything bad was going to happen it would’ve happened by now. No one’s come to him in the middle of the night demanding he cut off his toes for Mr Apple MacBook iPhone Boss, _yet._

“Seriously. He just let you into his apartment to see his secret dog, which sounds like a euphemism but surprisingly isn’t.” He hadn’t told her about the dog, she’d seen his dog haired covered jeans and wrestled it out of him. 

“The key word there being secret.” 

“What do you take me for? I’m not going to tell anyone, doofus. Your secrets are safe with me, especially the one about liking feet.” She throws that in once a year as well, they alternate, a nice little spinning wheel of foot fetish and being caught wanking. 

“I was drunk when I told you that, therefore nothing can be used against me in a court of law.”

  
  
“Wow, really obvious sometimes that you only made it through one year before dropping out.” She spins the paperwork back around, tucks it neatly into her little leather folder. 

“I’m already fragile enough as it is, can you not mention the horror year.” He offers her a cup of tea, she rejects it in favour of stealing his last can of diet coke from the fridge. This is a give and take relationship - because he’s stolen the pretty pen she’d given him to sign papers. 

“Mhm, sorry.” She takes a gulp, a big gulp that seems to go on forever, like she’s gone feral and not had a drink in 30 days. It’s that proper don’t stop to breathe i’m so thirsty I don’t care if it slips down out the side of my mouth sort of situation. Dan just hands her a piece of kitchen roll. “God. Needed that.”  


  
“Could tell, you freak. It’s gone in-between your tits, by the way.”

  
  
“Oh! So it has.” She shoves the kitchen roll down her cleavage to mop up the damage, leaves it there for the duration of their conversation. “But really, how’re you feeling about it all?”

  
  
“I - erm. Weird? Like sometimes he says stuff that absolutely mean he remembers, but then he’ll back it up with something that means he doesn’t remember? Does that make sense?” Like the dms earlier, the comment about Dan being dramatic. That was something Phil always used to say: _you’re so dramatic, you’re such a drama queen, you should apply for acting instead of law._

“It’s like you’re living in a really weird rom-com.” Mel is tapping her fingernails against Dan’s kitchen side, they’re a shade of blue that remind Dan of Phil’s eyes. He literally can’t escape. “I personally think he remembers, I think he wants you to mention it first.” 

  
  
“I don’t wanna.” Dan whines, collapsing all dramatically against the breakfast bar. “Cos then he’ll know that i’ve obviously been thinking about him for eleven years straight.”

  
“Eleven years gay.” Mel corrects, holding her hand up for a high five that Dan refuses to give her. “Spoilsport.”

  
  
“That was cheap joke and you know it.” 

“Yeah but, i’m a lesbian, so..”

  
  
“So what?”

  
  
“Everything I say is automatically funnier.” 

“I’m going to get a new manager.” Dan doesn’t mean it in the slightest, his first ever manager had been the one to convince Dan into working with tinder and hadn’t that been a disaster and a half. Mel was good, nice, stood in the middle of Dan’s kitchen with wet coke-sticky tits and she doesn’t even care.

“I’ve got a list of how many times you’ve threatened that, it’s about three million.” She hops up onto the counter, legs a million miles away from reaching the floor. “I’m not even going to ask if you still like him like that, it’s obvious you do.”

  
  
“Yeah,” Dan sighs, “I know.”

  
  
“But what do you want to do about it? Anything? Just be his friend?” 

  
  
“I’ve been with him twice and each time my head started chanting kiss him to the tune of _I will always love you_.” He demonstrates, Mel tells him he sounds like a cat getting fucked at two in the morning. 

“I’ve never seen you like this, you know? You seem genuinely happy, even if you are acting like a drama queen. Phil looks good on you.” She smiles, sincere like she can be when she wants to be. “You know, me and Nat had this thing when we first got together. Like I told her I couldn’t actually be with her for the dumbest ever reason and two years later we bumped into each other at a dentist and here we are. I may have one less tooth but I do have a girlfriend.” 

  
  
“Ten years is a lot longer than two, isn’t it?” He’s obsessed with Mel and Natalie, his manager stands at 5’1 whilst Natalie is definitely at least 5’10. Once he’d gone on a night out with them both, got all soft watching Nat give Mel a piggyback all the way home cos she was too pissed to walk. 

“Time doesn’t matter when it comes to love - and shit.”

  
  
“Maybe. I don’t know.”

  
  
“Follow your heart, you’ve already blocked the path off with a tree before.” She pats him on the cheek, gives him the damp kitchen roll and makes her departure. 

A whirlwind of a 5’1 lesbian.

-

March, 2020. 

“We don’t have any ideas.” Dan realises, he's back at Phil's apartment with nothing but beans in his brain.

  
  
“We do not, that may be the one fatal flaw in this plan.” Phil’s got everything set up, filming equipment ready to go but they’d both entirely missed the whole part about actually planning a video.

  
“We can try again another day? Netflix just put a new film on with Chris Evans in it.”

  
  
“Then that’s our new plan.”

-

“Shit, did I fall asleep?” Dan jolts himself awake after he has a dream about falling off a cliff, heart barely calming down before it starts back up again at the realisation he’s still in Phil’s apartment. 

“Yeah, lil bit.” Phil’s slouched over the other end of the couch, their legs tangled together beneath this big fluffy blanket. Dog Dan is sat in between them, snores too loud to be coming from such a tiny body. 

“Times it?”

  
  
“Two.”

  
  
“Phil!” Dan scream whispers, because it’s 2am and he doesn’t quite understand the relationship Phil has with his neighbours. “You should’ve woken me up.” 

“It’s fine, looked like you needed it. Basically conked out the minute we sat down, I got Chris Evans all to myself.” That means Dan’s been asleep for a solid seven hours, had felt safe enough in Phil’s presence to just pass out. “Had to stop Dan dog from clambering all over you and trying to sleep on your head.” 

“I wouldn’t have minded.” Dan flaps his arm about until he locates the little creature, gives his head a soft scratch. “He can sleep on my head any day of the week.” 

  
  
There’s barely any light in the room, just whatever's coming from the tv. Phil has turned it all the way down, put on the subtitles and Dan has to stop himself from crying when he realises he’d done it in an effort to not wake Dan up. It’s 2am - he can be a bit hysterical if he wants to be.

Phil looks half awake, like he could fall asleep if he decided to try but he doesn’t _want_ to try thank you very much. He turns, meets Dan’s gaze, smiles like he’s been waiting for Dan to look at him for an eternity (eleven years is pretty much that).

“You can stay here, if you want. I want you to, too late to be traipsing off around London by yourself.” 

  
  
“I can stay.” 

“Good. That’s settled then.” 

It’s nothing more than Dan sleeping on Phil’s sofa, nothing more than Phil tucking the blanket around his shoulders, leaning in to press a kiss to his forehead when he thinks Dan’s asleep. 

-

  
  
Dan used to think it impossible to spend so much time with someone, to spend it and never want it to be over. There was always a cut off point with everyone, where he had to leave, to go home and be by himself. Had to let his brain charge and process and think about all the embarrassing things he’d said between the ages of 12-18. 

  
  
Phil time works differently, though. Phil time has it’s own clock and it’s own rules. There’s never a point where Dan wants to leave, never a point where he gets sick of hearing someone else speak. If anything it’s good for him, turns down all the loud in his brain and replaces it with Phil laughing, Phil saying something either wildly stupid or beyond intelligent - there’s no in-between.

He’ll easily spit out all these facts about every animal - beautifully, poetically, intricately.Then he’ll say something like “There’s worms in my skin” and claim it’s well known phrase, like he isn’t trying to say _butterflies in my stomach_ and had gotten every single word wrong. 

He spends many nights curled up on Phil’s sofa, arguing about the legitimacy of trash Netflix shows, playing games that make Phil so angry he almost can’t believe theNintendo switch is still alive. 

They still never mention 2009. 

They still mention everything else, no topics off limits.

March is a bit of an eyeopener to Dan's life if he'd have used his train ticket - feels like he's snuck into an alternate timeline. 

-

“I’m just saying that If I want to try fizzy milk that I can cos my mum can’t stop me.” 

  
  
“Sure go for it, bud.”

-

“Did you know my feet have a five star rating?”

  
  
“I can believe it.”

-

“Are you alright?” Phil asks, tapping the back of Dan’s hand with gentle fingers.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, sorry. Thinking.” He comes back down from space, Phil looking at him with something akin to worry. Then there are soft fingers wrapping around his wrist, pressed against his pulse-point, holding in a way that makes Dan tethered to the earth again. 

“Sure?”

  
  
“Er - just having a day.” Dan admits, because at this point he may as well, at this point he can say anything to Phil and not regret it later on. 

“Need me to do anything? I can leave you and Dog dan for a few hours and go edit.”

  
  
“No, no. Just.. be here?”

  
“Ok.” Phil smiles. “You can pick a movie, i’ll go and get the popcorn.”

-

“Phil.”

  
  
“Yeah?”

  
  
“Did - have you watched my depression video?” Dan has to know, has to know after other day. Phil had been so quick to just.. know, to understand Dan and not look at him like he was a weirdo for admitting his day wasn’t actually all that good. That was probably the properly British thing in other people, that stiff upper lip that meant no one ever spoke to each other about anything important, anything to do with mental health and the - serious stuff. Phil wasn’t like anyone else, he’d realised that way before now.

  
  
“Mhm. I did.” Phil drags his eyes away from the screen, he’d been putting in and then editing out the same clip for about half an hour now - it was something that contained an actual proper opinion. 

“Ok.” Dan settles back down next to him, hooks his chin over Phil’s shoulder as he watches. Phil doesn’t shrug him away, so Dan think it’s ok. 

“I’m not saying I like understand it or anything, because it’s not mine and I could never. But i’ll always try, just tell me if i’m doing anything wrong, please.”

  
  
“You’re not doing anything wrong, and you should keep the clip in. It’s good.”

-

15th August, 2009

**_Dan, are you ok?x_ **

**_Yeah_ **

**_Dan.._ **

**_What?_ **

**_Are you ok?x_ **

**_  
  
eh. shit day._ **

**_:( wanna talk about it?_ **

**_  
  
not really_ **

**_wanna come on Skype and watch me film a really really stupid video?_ **

**_Plz_ **

**_-_ **

March, 2020.

“Bonk. You’re going to horny jail.” Dan bops him on the head with the remote control. 

“I am not, you are.”

  
  
“Why me?! I’m not the one who's been sat here staring at a photo of .. whoever that is for like an hour.” Dan’s walked past editing Phil six times now, each time the same set of abs had been on screen.

“It’s for a video!”

  
“Oh, sure, a _video._ ” 

-

If he’s not physically with Phil he’s texting him, a running commentary of his day like a 24 hour news channel but it’s dedicated to Dan and his feelings.

**I want to eat Mcdonalds, please talk me out of it.**

**Now I want Mcdonalds.. Uber eats you are the champion of Phil’s heart**

**-**

**hngbfdsdfagdhfnytrasdfsgdhjm,hgmfndfsdRNWEGRDSlqewfaegsbdvzsadcsv**

**Er, what? Is that the words longest. Hello naniel gowell blease fucking die… and so on.**

**Butt texted you, blease don’t die**

**.**

**It’s sort of like.. I want to lie down on the ground until the world just stops being how it is**

**Wanna come over and lay on my floor?**

**  
  
yeah.**

**-**

**do you think i could get away with posting this to insta, or is it like.. too much?**

**  
  
Jesus**

**-**

**look at this cow**

**Oh my god… why is it so fluffy**

**Right? Fluffy cows! They have big brown eyes like you, you’re the cow in this image.**

**Are you like just determined to find every single animal version of me? First dog dan and now cow Dan.**

**Ya.**

**Cool. I’m suing you for libel. If i’m an animal i’m clearly a much less squishy and cute one.**

**You are very squishy, have you seen your own face? Squish. dimples. Cheeks. Cow dan.**

**You are unhinged.**

**-**

**Dan, do you think horses are evil?  
**

**  
good morning**

**I just saw a horse and carriage in the park and it was so evil, like looked at me like it wanted to kick me and then turn me into sugar cubes**

**Wtf why are you at the park so early?**

**Dog dan dog walk**

**-**

**My manager said the whole video idea is a good idea, people will rejoice at the two former fringe boys being together. we will get so much money and be able to buy a castle**

**Phil, do you even have an idea?**

**  
  
I might!!! Come over?  
  
** -

October 1st 2009 **.**

_“You know how we spoke about doing a video together? Once you’ve uploaded yours and introduced your face to the world - your very good face.” It’s one of those nights, a night where Phil’s bending over backwards to try and make Dan smile._

_He’d had a thing with his parents, a proper shouting and screamingargument - a you’re not visiting a stranger off the internet._

_“Yeah.” Dan nods, not feeling too hopeful about even seeing Phil, never minding filming a video with him. He’ll have to sneak out in the middle of the night like a runway, but he’s eighteen so what business is it of theres? He’s legally an adult, he can meet whoever the fuck he likes. But he also needs somewhere to live, doesn’t know if his parents would actually kick him out if he pushed it too far._

_“I was thinking we do like a Q &A, an introduction to you an_ _d why I’m kinda obsessed with you.” Phil laughs, Dan’s mouth goes as far as a small twitch. “But not too much, cos then everyone else will want you and I don’t like that idea very much.”_

_  
  
“I’m sure no one else will want me, Phil, i’m not that great.”_

_“Dan.”_

_  
  
“Phil.”_

_  
  
“You know you’re like - it. Like you're it.. and you’re the greatest person on earth to me.” Dan does smile this time, hides it behind his too big hand. Sometimes he thinks he should be paying Phil for these weird makeshift therapy sessions._

_“Awful taste.”_

_“Nuh-uh. Cheese is gross and i’m correct about it.” They’d definitely argued about that, about the logic being flawed because Phil could devour an entire pizza in a heartbeat. He’d made an entire powerpoint and made Dan sit through it, there were five slides:_

  1. ******_Dairy industry and secrets_**
  2. ******_The other ingredients drown out the cheese!_**
  3. ******_Dominos cheese isn’t' like real anyway_**
  4. ******_I can order without cheese if I want, or pick it off. But it’s not real so I won’t._**
  5. ******_You’re wrong but I like you anyway._**



_“I’m not getting it this with you again, Phil, we’ll be here all night. Just- just tell me more about your video idea?” He needs to hear about the future right now, convince himself that’ll he’ll have one._

_Have one with Phil, that is._

_“Oh! Yeah. I was thinking I send out a tweet and everyone can send us some questions, then we’ll answer some serious ones but mostly weird ones because that’s more fun.”_

_“Right. And we’ll do it in you room?” Dan’s mainly thinking about the bed in Phil’s room, how he wants to share it with him. It wasn’t big, it was sort of ridiculous to think about two long boys sharing it. But smaller meant less space, meant they’d be forced to cuddle up, to practically sleep on top of each other and something about that made Dan feel fuzzy all over._

_“Na, we’ll do it on the moon.”  
_

_“You know the moon is made of cheese.”_

_  
  
Phil pulls a face, “ok, in my room.”_

_  
  
“Stupid.”_

_“You’re stupid. I was thinking we could like mash our names together or something, for the video title. Q &A just sounds boring, like I wouldn’t wanna watch it. We could go like…” Phil trails off, seemingly thinking about the million combinations that don’t exist because there’s only one and it’s obvious._

_  
  
“Phan?”_

_  
  
“Huh? Oh, no! I mean like, channel names - Phil is not on fire… maybe? Pinof if we can’t be arsed to say the full title.” Phil's typing furiously, Dan wonders just how many ideas he has listed down and if they’ll use them all in the end, every video they do together a different title from the wild world of Phil’s brain. “Pinof looks best written down, it’s sort of.. intriguing? A what the hell does that mean, i’d better click on the video to find out.”_

_“Then we go with that, even though I big regret calling my channel that.”  
_

-

March, 2020. 

“Ok, so, I _think_ I have a video idea. This is it. This is your great comeback!”

  
  
“Oh?” Dan is perched on Phil’s settee like he’d never learnt how to sit on one, flicking through Phil’s little book of ideas and hoping he wasn’t about to suggest they cut each others hair. It’s sort of baffling to Dan that Phil had obviously deemed the ideas on the fridge list the most important, the ones that needed to be out on display. He still has no idea about redacted cheese fashion and he’s too scared to ask at this point. 

  
“Yeah! I just realised, what’s something like easy and doesn’t require much thought? A classic youtuber Q&A!”

_Don’t say it._

“We can like smush our names together and call it Phil Is Not on Fire, or something.” Phil goes ahead and says it anyway, there’s no way he doesn’t know - if he doesn’t know Dan will genuinely go home and eat that leather shirtin his wardrobe.

“Excuse me, but that branding is dead.” Dan says, instead of what he wants to say. 

  
  
“Yeah, but. No. It has a ring to it! It sounds like.. catchy. What else are we supposed to call in? Two gay British men probe each other?”

  
  
“What channel are you uploading this to exactly?” Dan catches Phil’s wildly gesturing hands between his own. “Be still for a second, you’re making me feel dizzy.”

  
  
“Sorry.” He doesn’t look sorry. “But.. what do you think?

  
  
Dan lets out a small puff of breath, “Yeah. Alright.” 

-

April, 2020

From time to time Dan still gets them, the people asking about 2009. It’ll be a random tweet, a random reminder of the comments on dailyboots or answer on formspring. He imagines that’ll double in size after staring in one whole AmazingPhil video, reckons then Phil will know if he doesn’t already. 

Dan’s still on the fence with it all. Either Phil just likes him enough to already be acting like they’ve known each other for years, or he knows that they technically have known each other for years.

“You’re going to have to be the one to lure Dog Dan out of the room, this is his nap time and he won’t be impressed.” 

“It’s literally alway his nap time.” He’s never met such a sleepy dog, the only time he’s awake is when he’s eating or when Phil takes him on a walk. Sometimes he’ll play for twenty minutes, but that feels more like he’s indulging Dan than himself - this silly human wants to play. Other than that he’s beyond content to curl up in Dan’s lap, use him as a personal space heater. “God, I wish I was Dog Dan and not actual Dan.” 

“We all wish, he’s an icon. Now go break his tiny dog heart and kick him out of my bedroom.”

  
  
“No!” Dan whines, scandalised. “Why me? He loves me, we have a thing.. based on mutual trust. Don’t make me.”

  
  
“You have to do it cos I live with the dude, he’ll bite my feet in the night.” Phil hands Dan a treat - a nasty little trick. “Please?”

“Ugh, fine.”

Dan will never forget the betrayal in dog Dan’s eyes as he shuts the bedroom door on him. 

-

“Evil. I think he hates me.”

  
  
“You’ll be alright, he likes your warm lap too much to hold a grudge for long.” Phil pats the classic amazingphil sheets, Dan feels like it’s too big a moment to just dive into. He sits slowly, like the bed is going to vanish out from beneath him, he’ll wake up and found out that all of this was just a month long fever dream after accidentally knocking himself out in the bath. 

“It’s not going to bite.”

  
  
“I know! Just the whole wicker thing doesn’t look exactly stable, bit scared i’ll sit down and go straight through it.” He gets there, eventually - Phil’s still sat there beside him, sharpie in hand and good to go.

“Ready?

“As i’ll ever be.”

  
  
“Whisker me up, Danny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you wanna reblog on tumblr! I really do appreciate it :)](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/629524022362767360/can-we-try-again-chapter-4-fictropes)
> 
> god I wish I was mel..... also i went for a snapshot sort of style for loads of moments throughout march! cos i thoguht that was the best way to display how they were like getting closer.. hope it wasn't confusing!!!!!
> 
> I am still reading all of your comments and they're all making my heart feel very warm<3 i've just decided to NOT reply to them due to my brain (for once) knowing the entire plot to this fic and wanting to spoil it. it's like reply to this comment telling them everything that's going to happen, they're nice and excited.. they deserve it. so in the interest of not spoiling this i'm gonna wait till the end to reply. But PLEASE do keep commenting as i love to read them all so so much!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if u wanna scream at me on tumblr!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)
> 
>   
> tw: internalised homophobia & mentions of depression

April, 2020.

Phil’s gripping Dan’s chin, something just on the edge of being rough. It’s doing horny, horny things to his brain. “One!”

  
  
“One? Phil! Speed it up! I’m going to pass out from the fucking marker fumes.”

  
  
“Uh-oh, I just realised i’m probably going to have to bleep this entire video.” Phil is concentrating so hard, Dan can see it in his eyes. Every whisker being drawn on with perfect precession, until he fucks it and stabs Dan too hard in the cheek. “Ow! Phil! It’s supposed to be a nice, gentle little whisker. You’re not giving me a flu shot.” 

“Sorry.” He is very much not sorry in the slightest, he looks like he’s fighting his face in an attempt to not smirk. “I’ll be gentle, do you like it gentle?”

  
  
Dan stares at the camera - _this guy._

“Are you done? I think you should be done, you absolute heathen.” He snatches the pen from Phil’s fingers, has a half a mind to just draw a dick on his left cheek in punishment for all the immense suffering. 

  
  
He’s fully in Dan the youtuber mode - louder than usual, voice slightly higher and whinier. Phil notices it straight away, wiggles his eyebrows in response and it doesn’t even make any sense. It’s a moment that’ll get edited out, and it winds Dan up that Phil’s acting like he doesn’t also have an entire different voice and smile for the camera. 

“Oh, perfect. I should become an artist.” He has a hand on either side of Phil’s face, “do you feel like a small kit?” 

“Yes,” Then he meows, because of course he does. 

  
  
“Then my work here is done.” Dan takes a small sitting bow, and Phil uses that moment to dump some _surprise_ glitter in his hair. 

“A celebration of Dan’s first non-dog collab!”

  
  
“I’m literally going to kill you. Turn the camera off so I can murder in peace.” He’ll be getting it out for weeks, months, the rest of his goddamn life.

Phil pouts, “I thought it was nice.”

  
  
“No, what’s nice is not picking glitter out of your arse-crack for the rest of time.” Dan jabs Phil lightly in the rib, face scrunched up in what he hopes looks like anger to the camera but really he’s just all giggly and stupid on the inside. Phil had just dumped glitter in his hair, but Dan is smitten and can’t find it in himself to care. 

  
  
Dan thinks love essentially consists of two things 1) dying in a video game for someone, 2) not caring when they’re the cause of a lifetime of picking glitter out of your orifices. 

-

They’d both gone through twitter separately, picked out their own questions. Knowing took away half the fun, he wants to see Phil’s face when he asks, “What position is your favourite…” he goes comically wide eyed, “for sleeping in?”

  
  
“Oh!” Phil finally says once his brain has climbed its way out of the gutter, “i’ll show you.” 

He wastes zero time in diving onto his front, “it’s obviously nips to the mattress.” 

Dan stares, and then stares some more. Sometimes he thinks there’s no way in hell that Phil is from this planet, he crash landed on earth ten years ago and decided to never go back because he really liked the look of human dick. “Annddd Mr Amazing just ruined front sleeping for everyone.”  


“My way is better. I’m a marketing wizard.” 

“Alright, then sell me the closest object to you.” 

“Fine.” What he picks up from his bedside table is the deadest plant to ever not exist. “It’s dead and you’re the only one who can bring it back to life, coming to cinemas near you.. The plant reviver.”

  
  
“Not convinced.”

  
  
“Cos you don’t have the green thumb.”

  
  
“Fingers.”  


“What?”

  
  
“It’s green fingers, not just-”

  
“Whatever.” Phil cuts him off mid sentence, “Would you rather have rakes for feet or trowels for hands?”

  
  
“I- hm.” Dan leans back, strokes a hand across his chin like he’s really thinking about it all, this question will unlock all the secrets of the universe if he gets it right. “Rakes for feet.”

  
  
“Why? Explain.”

  
  
The explantation stays firmly out of the final edit.

“Wait!” Dan yells, because there’s a full on insane vibe to this entire video and who is he to not play along. “If you were actually a sheep farmer in Iceland what would your favourite sheep be called?”  


  
“Er - John.. Travolta.” Phil breaks out into a line from the musical, sings all the keys words wrong but it’s so weirdly in tune that it sounds right “you’d better sheep up, cos I need some wool and my heart is set on ewe.” 

“Wow.. wow.” Dan gives him a slow clap, and he absolute means it. “That was some galaxy brained thing you just did.” 

“Thankyou, thankyou.” 

“Best Chris? Pine, Evans, Hemsworth.. go.”

  
  
“They’re all! I wouldn’t kick - all.” 

“All? Now you really are going to horny jail.”

  
  
“Dan, you’re making editing this so hard.” Phil pretends to strangle him, but even the pretend is doing a little something for Dan.

“You’re the one who suggested it, should’ve thought about my behaviour before you let me on your channel.” Dan smiles, and Phil just looks at him, looks at him like he had eleven years ago over a laptop screen that probably contained about two pixels. 

“I like having you on my channel.” Phil's voice is back to his normal voice, something reassuring about how much he wants to reassure Dan. He sweeps his hand up Dan’s arm, it leaves a trail of something - electricity, fire, stars. It comes to settle on his shoulder, gives a tentative squeeze and -

“Bastard! Absolute bastard.” All the distraction had been just to tickle him, for Phil to get his jammy little mitts on him, fingers beneath his armpits, running down his sides until the only option left is for Dan to beg for mercy. “Ple-stop! Babuse, this is - Phiiiil.” 

“Gonna behave?”

  
  
“Yes! Yes, I will be the most perfect guest.” Phil stops, hands now just lingering on Dan’s sides like he wants to move them away but he physically can’t, they’re stuck there until he does something like - lean in. 

“Dan.”

-

19th September, 2009

_“What do you think makes the like— erm, perfect kiss?” Phil’s twiddling his thumbs, all nervous like he’s asking Dan out on a date or asking him if he has permission to kiss him in a months time._

_“I don’t know, i’ve never really kissed anyone and properly enjoyed it. It’s always been a means to and end sort of thing, I don’t know. I guess if you actually like like the person it’s always going to feel nice.”Dan’s not got all that much experience in kissing people he actually likes, he’s kissed girls who he thought he’d like but were just excuses to show how straight he was - he felt bad about that. He’d been kissed by his actual bully in a dark corner at a random party. He’d imagined Phil kissing him and that made him feel more than any real kiss ever had._

_“Yeah.” Phil hums, “I think kissing is nice, I don’t think it always has to be this thing that just leads to sex. It can be hot to just make out with someone on the couch and know that’s all that’s going to happen, that you cant keep your hands off each other and you have to convey it somehow. But it doesn’t always have to.. you know.”_

_“I wouldn’t know.” Dan says, “but i’d like to.”_

_“Yeah?” Phil sounds uncharacteristically nervous, maybe he’s gone some big speech for Dan planned and he can’t spit it out. Dan had about a million speeches for Phil written in his own head, always crammed them back down because he knew he couldn’t say them out-loud, couldn’t be so vulnerable. He’d say them one day, maybe, when he was older and more secure and he was sure Phil properly liked him in person. They read like actual wedding vows, and it’s embarrassing that Dan has so much to say about Phil already, can fill two sheets of a4 with these pretty words and big emotions._

_“Yeah. Sounds nice, nice to know someone could just want to have you like that even though they know it’s not going anywhere, to just be so overwhelmed with you. No one has ever wanted me like that.”_

_“Erm-“ Phil’s voice cracks, this little reminder of how nervous he is and it makes Dans’ heart sing,“I want you like that.”_

_-_

April, 2020

  
  
“Yeah?” Dan’s ready to catch him, to place two hands on Phil’s waist and just— let it happen, finally. 

“Nothing.” Phil's eyes are making it obvious, darting down to his lips every half a second, the slight shake of his hands where they rest on his chest a dead giveaway. It’s not nothing, it’s something that’s been building for too long, for a whole fucking decade and Dan’s ready this time - isn’t going to run away. 

He’s so close, close enough to smell the shampoo he uses, the slight splash of cologne on his neck, to feel Phil’s breath fan out across his cheek. This isn’t _nothing._

Dan laughs, soft and melodic, it carries through the air and probably sounds absolutely ridiculous on camera. It’s sort of odd to think that he’s going to be able to watch their first kiss back, for Phil to be able to tease him about the want written all over his face. 

“If you say so, bucko.” He tilts his head, goes to close the gap and -

“Dan, no. Don’t.” Phil stops him with a hand against his chest, a physical barrier of _nope._

_  
_  
“Why?” Dan mentally kicks himself. “No, not why. Fuck. Sorry. You don’t have to explain yourself, i’m sorry. Just obviously read it all wrong, I am quite stupid sometimes.” 

“No- you didn’t.” Phil sighs, pulls back to create some distance. “I just— we should talk, need to talk.” 

-

They have one drink, two, three. Then it happens how lots of important things happen, sat on the living room floor, back pressed up against a radiator. 

Phil sits, sighs, opens and closes his mouth multiple times like he really wants to say something but has no idea how to say it. Dan wants to make some sort of comment about how Phil looks like a fish, but the moment feels too big and he’s crawling out of his skin to know what this is about - he already has an idea. 

“I waited for like four hours on that platform, you know?” Phil finally, finally gets out. And it feels like Dan’s been hit by a truck, like all the alcohol has seeped out through his skin and he's suddenly the soberest he’s ever been in his whole life. 

“You kn-“

  
  
“Of course I fucking knew, Dan. Jesus Christ.” Phil looks a bit done already, his hands picking and picking at this random piece of string on his t-shirt like it’s the only thing tethering him to this moment if he stops he’ll have to stop too, leave this conversation hanging in midair. “Have you ever heard me say I have - I don’t know. Retrograde amnesia? I’m not an idiot, you’ve grown-up but, I could still recognise you anywhere.”

  
  
“No.. to the amnesia, but. You never said anything.”  


“Neither did you.”

  
  
“Touché,” and then, “wait, how did you know that I knew?”  


Phil laughs then, properly laughs like Dans just told the world funniest joke— where was he during the flop of a stand up set? “You know you have the worlds most obvious face, yeah? You always have. It was cute how you used to try and hide things, you thought you were being all stoic when really you were bright red and— stupid dimples.”

  
  
“Shutup.” Dan tries, and fails, to conceal the red patch on his jaw. 

“And when you bumped into me in that hallway, it was like you were a character in a cartoon. Your eyes were on springs and came out of your head. It was very obvious, and all I could think was, well, fuck he’s hotter in person. Like, god. After all this time, after everything,i’m still this stupid twenty-odd year old who can’t believe this pretty boy is talking to him.” He’s wearing odd socks, long legs stretched out in front of him and Dan wants to make a dumb comment about them, wants to take delay so he can formulate a response that conveys how sorry he is about everything. 

“I didn’t want to like.. put you on the spot, I don’t know. Like hi i’m that guy who fucking vanished off the face of the earth, hi! I decided if you didn’t want to remember then I wouldn’t make you.” It doesn’t feel big enough, he desperately wants to explain every single little thing but his brain is deciding to have a word shortage. “I sort of wanted you not to remember so I’d have the chance to.. try again?”

“And I didn’t want to be the guy who said..hi, remember me? You ghosted me eleven years ago and i’m still not over it. It was your decision to do that, and I decided it was your decision to act like it’d never happened. I was— content. To do that. Until I realised I really, properly liked you again. Probably never stopped. I liked to think i’d stopped, then I saw your face on the youtube homepage and was like fine, he still has a hold on me.” Phil sounds reluctant to admit it, but it makes Dan smile anyway. “You know we could’ve gone ahead without saying anything, but i’m sure one day one of us would’ve exploded with everything left unsaid.” 

“Suppose. I kept having to snap my mouth shout before I slipped up and mentioned an old phone call.” Speaking of old things, Phil had just half-admitted to something “that mean you still watch all my videos and have all our skype chats stored away?” It’s teasing, with a side of truth, with a side of I hope you have because I do and I can’t be that sad all on my own. 

“I plead the fifth.”

  
  
“Oh, shutup, idiot. I do. I’d transferred them from laptop to laptop so many times i’m surprised I can even see them anymore, that they’re like not two pixels of nothing.” He scoots across the floor, presses their shoulders together because he suddenly feels desperate to know Phil’s real and sat down beside him saying all these— these words. “I have a youtube playlist of all your videos to play whenever I feel.. sad.”

“I think I needed to keep them, to convince myself it actually all happened. It sometimes feels fake, you know? Like I made it all up because surely no ones life is actually like that.” Phil hesitates, then theres a hand on Dan’s thigh and it feels like - everything. All the good things in the world combined into one touch. “But it did, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did.” Dan builds up the courage to place his hand over Phil’s, who in turn twists his wrists so they’re holding hands and it’s all very— good. It’s all good but there are still things that need to be said, things that need to fixed now the main points are out in the open, now they both know. “I should tell you everything.”  
  
“You don’t need to.” Phil squeezes his hand like he means it, like he’s forgiven him already with no explanation. 

“But do you _want_ me to?”

Phil looks torn for half a second, guilty about asking Dan for something he’s owed. “I mean— I won’t sit here and say I didn’t always wonder about the specifics. I suppose I got a lot of answers from your coming out video, it all suddenly made a lot more sense. But I decided like a week after it happened to not.. hate you.”

“I went over and over again in my head about talking about you, not by name but by.. I don’t know. I just felt like you were such a big thing for me and my whole experience, but I didn’t want to mention you without ever having said sorry.” The moment stretches, this little pocket of time where they’re just two people who like each other so they’re holding hands because they’re allowed to do that now. “I am, by the way, sorry.”

  
  
“Dan— I don’t think you ever did it to be cruel. You don’t have to be sorry, you just have to.. to be ok with it. You have to accept that you did it because you felt you had no other choice - to realise you were only trying to protect yourself - and i’d never begrudge you for that.” Phil sounds like he means every single word, and for some reason that only makes Dan even more determined to explain, to explain to Phil why it was never anything to do with him and it was all just Dan. Dan and his own head. 

“Why are you so fucking good all the time?” Dan drops his head down onto Phil’s shoulder, and then he begins “I never said it back then but I was properly, properly in love with you. Over the internet that felt safe, it was this thing that no one else could really see and I could always denyit if came to it. I could always turn around and say no i’m not because the internet isn’t real. Real life felt like so fucking much, Phil.”

  
  
“Dan, you don’t have to-“ Phil starts, but Dan squeezes his hand and he stops mid sentence. 

“If I met you in real life and was still in love with you, then that meant it was real. That meant I was in love with a man and that was— scary. That terrified me so fucking much, Phil. That meant I _was_ all these things people had always been telling me I was, that meant I was actually gay.” Dan can say the word now, it’s no longer this massive stone getting lodged in his throat every time he tries to get it out, to say what he is.

“And that meant I was bad, at least that’s what I thought. I was this terrible, terrible person cos that’s what everyone had always told me. The idea of getting to Manchester and having to confront that, having to face the reality of who I was.. it just wasn’t something I was ready for. I was living in this little bubble where I was still a good person as long as everyone was only _saying_ these words to me.. as long as I wasn’t _actually_ what they were saying. The whole internalised homophobia was strong.” Dan laughs, this soft noise of a thing that makes Phil wrap an arm around his shoulders. 

“Oh, Dan.” It doesn’t sound like pity, it doesn’t raise Dan’s hackles like most people manage to do. They look at him with such— pity. All the time. Like they just see him as this sob story to coo over, not an actual human being with emotions. 

“Right? Shit show of a childhood.” 

“I worked out a long time ago it wasn’t about me, there was something deeper there that meant you just couldn’t get on the train.” Phil says, and it once again sounds like the truth, not just something to make Dan feel better. “When I realised that I felt.. weirdly fine, like I wanted you in my life but I didn't’ want you to be in it a time where my company just would’ve made you miserable and afraid. I’d have tried to help, of course, but I think sometimes you just have to.. face yourself. No one else can convince you of anything if you feel a certain way. I was always going to keep the door open, though. You made me feel too much to close it.”

“I’m working through it, every day. I go to therapy and I tell myself in the mirror that who I am is fine and I can say the word gay without wanting to literally vomit. I’m ready to through the door now.” Dan rolls into Phil’s side, forces them into a proper hug that feels like coming home. 

“I was properly proud of you when you uploaded that video, you know. I always wanted to leave a comment, to message you— even like it. But I’d always said i’d leave it up to you, it was always going to be your decision to come back if you wanted to. Then a month ago I had a Daniel Howell back in my dms..” Phil strokes his hand up and down Dan’s arm, like he can’t stop touching now that’s he’s allowed. “Also, you really are stupidly hot.” 

“Says you.”

“Yeah, says me. You were pretty back then, but now I look at you and think oh wow he could be a model he’s that— you just have a good face.” Phil presses a kiss to his curls, and Dan’s never felt relief like it. “I think if I told everyone about this, they’d expect me to be angry. And at the beginning I expected that, too, I thought I was broken because I didn’t feel this anger. I was sad, but that was it. I think I knew you enough to know you’d have this proper reason for not coming, I trusted you and I still do.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, but I needed to.. talk about it before we went for it. This thing that’s been between us, felt way too many emotions in that hotel bedroom, you know. It doesn’t even feel like any time has passed and it’s been eleven years, how stupid is that?” Dan just nods, nods and nods and wonders how he ever got lucky enough to have someone like this, someone who understood him so well.

“I am sorry, I know what I did was because of other things that were out of my control, but I still had the control when it came to us. I still could’ve told you, I still could’ve just let you know I wasn’t coming and - all that. That was me, and that my mistake. You still felt sad and that was my fault.” Dan had learnt a million lessons over the years, the one that had always stuck with him was saying sorry forthe things he’s done whilst in a shitty place. The decisions he made still hurt other people, and he shouldn’t be given a free pass because of his of depression. He makes it a point now to say sorry, even though he sometimes struggled to realise when he was doing half the things he needed to apologise for. 

“Thankyou, then.” Phil accepts it easily, like he knows Dan needs him to, that it’s a big deal to him even if in Phil’s head it isn’t all that important. 

“Phil?”

“Mhm?”

  
  
“Can I kiss you now?”

  
  
“No.” Phil says without missing a beat, “we need to go on a date first, I had this big massive plan in 2009— this secret.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter .. so chapter 6 is the last proper chapter, then 7 will be an epilogue! 
> 
> the whole saying sorry after shitty things done during depressive eps is from a personal viewpoint! i sometimes don't even realise i'm being .. like that and only after do i realise i've been being horrible to people. disclaimer just to say i know not everyone works like that!!!! and i'm not saying that's how it is!!!
> 
> I am still reading all of your comments and they're all making my heart feel very warm<3 i've just decided to NOT reply to them due to my brain (for once) knowing the entire plot to this fic and wanting to spoil it. it's like reply to this comment telling them everything that's going to happen, they're nice and excited.. they deserve it. so in the interest of not spoiling this i'm gonna wait till the end to reply. But PLEASE do keep commenting as i love to read them all so so much!!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you wanna scream @ me on tumblr](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> i h8 writing smut so the most minuscule amount.... if you wanna skip some probably unsexy words just don't read the second to last section ( separated by the usual '-') lol just dunking on my own fic

April, 2020

**8 tomorrow, i’ll pick you up**

**You?**

**Me and my uber driver..**

**8pm dinner date it is then**

**8am!!!!!!  
**

**What the fuck?**

**  
  
A Secret :)**

-

“Eight in the morning? Is he taking you to.. an adventure trail? Oh my, maybe this is all a setup and he’s going to push you out of a tree as revenge.” After Dan spilt all to Mel she insisted she come over and help Dan pick out the perfect outfit. So far she’s just been lounged on Dan’s bed slagging off all his clothes. 

“I hope so, how sexy would that be?” He holds up a shirt, she pulls a face— not a good face. “Oh my god! You go in my wardrobe, fuck, you’re impossible.”

  
  
She does, with a great amount of glee, Dan ends up one hoody down and one lace shirt up. 

“You can full on see my nipples.” 

“Exactly.” She grins, then she’s pulling Dan’s jumper over her own head and leaving him stood in the middle of the bedroom surrounded by his own clothes. “Just try it!”

  
  
And, alright, maybe it’s a look. Definitely not a day date look, but it might work for Phil when they get back from wherever they’re going. He settles on something a little less obviously horny, a black shirt with a hint of glittered thread running through it.

“Booo!” And if she had popcorn she’d be throwing it at him, “Where are the nips?”

  
  
“The nips are being saved for when we get back to his house.” That seems to satisfy her.

“You look pretty, Mr Howell. Go blow his mind.”

-

April 2020, London Piccadilly “Train Station. 

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

  
  
“I am not.” 

Phil’s not, by 11am they’re in Manchester. 

“I can’t believe you.” He sort of can though, it seems a very Phil thing to do. Speaking of Phil, he looks hot. Too hot to be in Manchester and not back in his London apartment with Dan all over him. He’s got this maroon shirt on, buttoned up all the way to the top, it’s short sleeved and the sight of his arms is the cause of Dan nearly getting concussed after walking into a lamppost.

“We’re going to follow my itinerary, apart from we’ll miss out a few steps. The uni one, and the eye one. The Manchester eye just doesn’t exist.” Phil seems genuinely upset that, god knows why.

  
  
“It was shit, the last time I went on it I thought I may as well have walked to the top of Marks and Spencers for free. Would’ve seen the exact same fucking things.” Phil just gives him this odd look.

-

5th December, 2009

**_[Unsent] I think I saw you, I don’t know, maybe it’s wishful thinking. I didn’t want to go out today..mum was like Phil's it’s the perfect day for Christmas shopping :(. And I was just… is that Dan coming out a little Manchester eye pod? I don’t know. I’m going to pretend it was you so then I know you’re ok.If yes… glad two tickets didn’t go to waste. Glad you're ok._ **

-

April, 2020. 

“Shouldn’t you also be leaving out going back to yours? Doubt the people living there now would appreciate us turning up and requesting their couch for making out.” Dan holds the door open for Phil as they walk into Starbucks, the same one he’d sat him by himself years ago. It seems different now, with Phil here, like a completely different building in a completely different place.

“We’re going back to my Apartment, same thing.” Phil orders for him, that stupid caramelconcoction that Dan hadn't had since all the sugar hurt his teeth. This time, though, it’ fine. It’s delicious. It’s his favourite drink in the world again.

“Going back to your apartment for…?” Dan’s trying to fish, wants to know if he should be applying chapstick. The idea of kissing Phil is something he should stop thinking about immediately, lest he walk into another lamppost. 

“Board games.”

“Oh, of course.” Dan nods, smiling into his cup. 

“Your mind is constantly in the gutter, Howell, I’m very disappointed.” 

-

The apple shop is awkward, two grown men pouting into a computer. Phil insists, though, makes them stand there for age despite all the odd looks.

They stop after for food, and it blows Dan’s idea of a romantic restaurant being the secret away.

-

“What’s this secret? Honestly i’ve been wondering for eleven years.” He holds Phil’s hand for a second as they walk through a near empty street, let’s go once too many people appear. It’s not that he doesn’t want people to know, it’s that he doesn’t want people with phones taking photos. He wants to tell this story on his own terms, in his own time. 

“It’s a secret! I can’t just tell you, then it wouldn’t be a secret.” Phil points out, like Dan’s just an absolute idiot. 

“Want me to close my eyes? You’ll have to guide me.” Phil puts a hand on the small of his back, urges him forward and into a building Dan hadn’t been expecting to go it. 

“Phil.. this looks stupid expensive, what the fuck?” He whispers to a Phil, to a Phil who is just going on ahead and telling the woman at the desk that he has a reservation. 

It’s all too much. He feels as though security guards are going to come charging out of the back any second now like a couple of bulls. Heads down, horns out, ready to ram him back out onto the pavement. He’s just glad he didn’t go for nipples out shirt. 

“Follow me, sirs.” 

  
  
There’s this odd lighting, not too dark that you can’t see, but dark enough that it’s just making everyone look really fucking good. Dan wants this lighting in his house, wants it for all his selfies. The seats are all plush and velvet and in colours that give off the opulent vibe, that if you sit in me then you’d better be someone important vibe. Dan is not important, but at least Phil is. 

“Your seats.” They’re sat by the window, and the view this time is amazing. It’s that time of the day, the sky is already dark , the lights from surrounding fancy shops are on, looking an awful lot like Christmas lights in April - the combination is a very pretty one. He takes his phone out to snap a photo, and then turns it arouund to get one of Phil. 

“Hey! I was drooling at the cocktail menu, that’s no fair.” Dan hasn’t even looked at the menu, a bit scared to. Twenty nine year old him is losing it at the prices he can see on the back of the menu Phil is holding up, he has no idea what eighteen year old Dan would’ve done. 

“You always look pretty.” Dan smiles, because there’s something about this place that’s making him want to be all soppy and sincere. “You can’t blame me for taking photos.”

Phil struggles now to keep neutral around him, tonight is no exception because his cheeks are turning pink and Dan could happily live inside this moment for the rest of his life. “Stop flattering me, you’re allowed to pick the most expensive thing on the menu without all these nice words.”

“Soo….” Dan’s eyes bulge out of his head when he finds it, “A three thousand pound bottle of champagne.”

“Sure,” Phil says easily, “Why not?”

-

They don’t get the champagne, even though Phil insists, eggs Dan on a little bit to order it. “I just wanna see! Like it must taste like the champagne equivalent of gold, aren’t you even a bit curious?”

  
  
“Is this is why everything you own is from topshop? You spend all your designer clothes money on too expensive alcohol.” The cheaper wine they’d decided on is enough, makes him feel pleasantly warm, not tipsy just.. content. 

“Topshop should sponsor me, giving them all this free promo.” Phil’s knees are pressed against his beneath the table, it’s all Dan can think about. “D’ya like it here?”

  
  
“Yeah. Were you really going to take eighteen year old Dan to a stupid expensive bar?” He asks, stealing some of the bright blue cocktail Phil had ordered for himself. It’s unsurprisingly mind-blowingly sugary. 

“Yeah, this exact place. You always used to think you didn't deserve anything, and I just wanted to shower you in fancy things to show you that you deserved everything.” Phil’s voice is soft, and it’s a little bit more northern than usual and from the twitch of his lips it’s obvious he’s doing it on purpose.

  
  
“I don't know how I would’ve coped with it, honestly. I didn’t deserve you, I thought, never mind anything else. I would’ve started throwing money at you the minute we sat down.” 

“We should.. not think about it, we both know it happened and that’s enough. We have this now, we have the future to talk about again and that’s all I ever wanted.” Phil lifts his bright blue drink, Dan clinks his own against the glass.

-

They get back to London - to Phil’s apartment - at 11pm. 

It isn’t the frantic, frenzied thing he’d been imagining. It’s the opposite, feels like the second Phil closes the door behind him that time slows down.

“You can kiss me now.” Phil’s closer, closer than Dan had been expecting, suddenly right in front of Dan with his perfect face and his perfect mouth. 

“Eleven years later.” Dan laughs, and then he does as he’s told.

It’s a press of lips, nothing more. Just this tentative, testing thing and it’s hard for Dan to not just go insane, to dip his tongue into Phil’s mouth and live out all the fantasies he’d at eighteen. 

It’s a press of lips that Dan pulls away from, to talk - to check this is still ok - but Phil chases after him with an eager mouth, with eager hands that are tangling into the material of his shirt. It’s not Dan’s first kiss, but it may as well be for how it’s making him feel - it’s that sensation of _oh my god finally._

Phil’s putting in all the work, Dan’s just sort of stood there until his brain catches up and realises he needs to be an active participant, that Phil kissing him is revolutionary but he should also moving his own mouth. 

Dan lets out this small whine of a thing, then he’s putting his hands on any part of Phil he can, backing him up against the wall so he can show off, so he can pull out these stupid little tricks and make Phil _want_ just as much as Dan wants. 

“What was that?” Phil whispers, pulling away even though it’s by barely an inch. 

“That was my tongue,” Dan laughs, sticking it out just to prove it, and all he does is lick Phil’s lips in a way that isn’t that sexy thing he’d been going for. 

In Phil’s defence, he recovers from it beautifully. “Yeah, but— no one’s ever done that before. Usually feels like they’re trying to wash my teeth.” 

“I know how to use my mouth.” He doesn’t respond, just crashes their lips together and _oh,_ Phil has tricks too. He uses his hand to gently tip Dan’s head, to change the angle— does something that involves biting and it’s all wet and hot and makes Dan feel dizzy. 

“Not to jump the gun, but that was the best kiss of my life.” Dan manages to get out once they finally part, once their lips are red and shiny andthe visual of Phil halfway to wrecked is really doing something for him. “Just like, don’t ruin it and spit in my mouth.. no, wait, I might like that. Spit in my mouth.”

“Ooooo, you wanna kiss me so bad.”

“I literally just kissed you, dingus.”

  
  
“And you wanna do it again.”  


“I wanna do it forever.” 

“Wanted to kiss you so much yesterday, blue-balling myself wasn’t my best idea ever.” Phil tucks a too long curl behind Dan’s ear, and he’s looking at him with so much affection that Dan believes he might actually have won against the world and it’s original plan for him.

“Don’t. I went home and like kissed my hand and pretended it was you.” He hadn’t, but he’d been close, might’ve scrunched up his fist just to see. “But today was.. the best day of my life.” 

“Sap.” Phil kicks Dan’s feet apart, steps into the space he’s created and kisses him some more. 

Dan’s nearly thirty, but this is Phil so that’s his excuse for getting hard just from making out in a hallway. Phil seems to notice, smirks against his mouth and drops a hand to Dan’s stomach, fingers splaying out too high up and not where Dan wants them to be. 

“Phil.” He whines, stopping the kissing in preparation to beg because he has zero shame and-

“Woof!”

“Dog Dan!” Phil abandons human Dan in the hallway. “Hello, hello. Did Martyn come and take you for a walk, were you a good boy?” He’s holding Dog Dan in his arms like a baby, and Dan suddenly wishes he was small enough to be scooped up like that. 

“Am I getting cock-blocked by the dog version of myself?” Dan asks, all dumb and stupid and horny in the hallway. 

“Well, we can’t lock him out the bedroom two days in a row.. he’ll get a complex.”

  
  
“I mean, that’s— not right, still. Sort of. Better than the last time you used it, kinda halfway there.” And he can’t even be mad because Dog Dan is wriggling around in Phil’s arms, trying to jump down and make his great escape to Dan’s lap. 

“He wants you; Must be my dog.” Phil gently deposits him down onto the ground, and Dan has no choice but to sit on the floor. 

-

“Fuck, Dan.” It happens in the shower, the one place Dog Dan understands he can’t go, the one place he can sink down onto his knees and show Phil just how good his mouth is. 

He’d tried for fucking at first, already in the medicine cabinet looking for condoms and lube. Phil had asked if he had a death wish. Dan had said yeah but then realised he didn’t want his grandma to know he’d spent his last moments getting railed.

This he can do, though. He’s good at it, good because he likes it. Likes the feeling of Phil’s cock in his mouth, the sweet little breathy noises he keeps making. The way he’s tugging at his hair like he doesn’t mean to but can’t help it, the way he keeps apologising for it and then doing it all over again. 

Dan digs fingernails into his hips, wants to leave a mark. He wants to wake up in the morning and see himself all over Phil, Phil’s already over him— sucked a bruise into his neck, slapped his arse in a way that was supposed to playful but wasn’t, Dan had liked it too much. 

He’s been pushing Phil to the edge for fifteen minutes, backing off when he gets too close. He’s trying to provoke him, wants Phil to snap and grab Dan’s hair like he means it, fuck his mouth— lose that perfect self-control. 

When Dan uses a hint of teeth Phil seems to get it, he snaps his hips forwards in a way that seems accidental, then when Dan looks up at him with all this want in his eyes it becomes purposeful. 

“Fuck, of course you can do that. Designed to drive me up the fucking wall.” The hand in his hair is rough now, makes Dan’s eyes sting in the best way, the tears just create a pretty picture of a man who’s perfectly wrecked. 

Dan slips his hands around to Phil’s arse, holds him there when he tries to pull away to come. The noises Phil makes as he comes down Dan’s throat are enough to fuel his wanks for an entire month, the look on his face enough for an entire year. When he pulls away it’s with a string of spit, with swollen lips and a sore jaw. “Forgot you had such stupid big dick.” His voice is raspy, and the thought of Phil being the cause it almost enough to tip him over the edge.

“Dan, get up here.” It’s only a hand job but, it’s still enough to make Dan fall apart in under a minute. 

-

“Phil.” They’re in his bedroom, beneath the classic green and blue covers, Dog Dan snoozing away at the bottom. It all feels real whilst still feeling like a dream, he pinches Phil just to double check.

  
  
“Ow! What was the for?” Phil yelps, looking incredibly betrayed by both Dan and Dog Dan who doesn’t wake up and jump to his defence.

“Was just checking it was real.”

  
  
“You pinch yourself for that.” Phil huffs, staring up the ceiling and refusing the kiss Dan’s trying to give him.

  
  
“Phil.” 

“What?”

“Can we try again?”

  
  
“Jeez, Dan, gimme a bit of time. I’m 33. Refractory periods exist, don’t shame me.”

  
  
“Not that!” Though maybe a little bit that, maybe Dan wants Phil to place Dog Dan out in the hallway and fuck him but that’s another thing for another day, they have an entire lifetime for it now. “I meant.. us, like us together. Can we try again?

  
  
“Yeah,” Phil smiles, “we can try again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> annnnnd this is the official end, but next chapter is an epilogue!


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [if u wanna scream at me on tumblr](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)
> 
>   
> hewoo! I uploaded 6/7 at once so if like me when reading a wip your instinct is to go to the last chapter... then please go back to chapter 6 as this is just a lil epilogue and chapter 6 is the main story ending!

October 19th, 2020

“Do you think we can count today as our eleven year anniversary?” They’d only half closed their blinds last night, Dan had gotten handsy whilst Phil was pulling them shut, distracted him enough to make him forget entirely. Now it’s nine am and the light is streaming in through the windows, bright enough to wake them both up. Dan’s content to just bask in this, the sunlight and the man in bed next to him. 

“It’s almost like you want me to take all the i love you’s i’ve ever said back and, like, eat them. Put them back in my brain and not out into the world.” Despite Phil's protests he rolls into Dan, bites his shoulder, tangles their legs beneath the covers. 

“Oh, shutup. I didn’t technically stop thinking about you, or loving you, for eleven whole years so I think it counts. It’s just been on a really, really long extended hiatus.” Dan explains, feeling Phil sigh into his shoulder all stupid and annoyed but definitely, completely in love. “I guess if you’re that upset i’d better go back to mine.”

  
  
“You’ve been saying you’ll go back to yours everything morning for.. the last six months. That’s an empty threat now.” Phil presses a kiss to his collarbone, travels along until he can cuddle into Dan’s chest where he’ll quite happily stay for hours, like Dan’s very own personal koala bear. 

“And have I gone back to mine? Yes.”

  
  
“Going back to yours for half an hour to fill up another bag of stuff to come and dump here, Daniel, doesn’t count as going home.” Dan wants to argue but that’s hard in this room, wherein he has one side of the wardrobe, two out of the four draws and a row of his shoes next to the door. 

“Shush, we can’t argue on our eleven year anniversary, don’t you want your present?” Phil suddenly perks up at that, if he had a tail it’d be thumping against the mattress but he only has a very nice face that Dan can feel, rather than see, smiling against his chest. 

“You got me a present?”

  
“Duh, it’s our eleven years.”   


“I may have also gotten you a present.” 

“So you admit it is our eleven year anniversary!” Dan cheers in triumph, and it’s all very smug and Phil tells him off for it.

“Do you want it, or not?”  


“Obviously I want it.”

  
  
“Then close your eyes, give me your hand.” 

Phil rolls away from him, digging through his bedside table drawer for a couple of minutes. Dan thinks that’s a stupid place to hide things, it’s filled with so much shit that putting anything in there is a risk, might get lost forever. 

“And i’ll get a nice surprise?” And you can hear the eyebrow wiggle even in his voice.

  
  
“I’m not putting my dick in your hand, you horny fiend.” What he does put in Dan’s hand is something small, something cold and-

“Phil, I already have a key.” 

“Yeah. I know but, that’s for emergencies or if i’m taking Dog Dan out and you need to get in, or whatever. This key is a proper your lease runs out in a month and I don’t want you to sign it again because I want you to move in with me ..key. Not even here, anywhere, I want you to move into all future places with me, if you want to- because I love you and you're it for me, have been for the longest amount of time.” 

“I— of course I want.” And Dan isn’t going to cry, apart from he does a little bit and Phil just laughs and pulls him in, and it feels like all the comfort in the world combined into just one hug.

“Ok, ok. Good, now gimme me present.” Phil whines, impatient when it comes to any sort of little surprise. 

-

3rd October, 2009

_“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?” Dan asks one night, deep in one his fantasies about just running away._

_“Japan!” Phil answers in less than a second, not even thinking about it because he’s so sure, and then he adds“with you. I’d love to go there with you.”_

_-_

19th October, 2009. 

“Oh my god, are these tickets? Are we going to give each other tickets back and forth until one of us dies?” He’d holding the envelope in his hand like it’s a bit dangerous, like he’s scared to open it because this time ten years ago tickets had been a bit of an.. issue. 

“Open them! God, how are you so impatient snd squirmy and then I give it you and you just stare at it like it’s going to bite you.” Dan almost wants to take it back, open it for him.

“Fine! Fine. I am doing it.” Phil’s hands are oddly shaky as he opens it up, then he has them in his hand and he’s all wide-eyed and imitating a fish again.

“Have I finally rendered you speechless?”

  
  
“Dan— you remembered. God. I’m really going to get to go to Japan with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you wanna reblog on tumblr, i appreciate it!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/629870924528746496/can-we-try-again-word-count-30k-77)
> 
> Andnnndndndndnd here ends my experiment to see if i could write a 30k fic in a week,... turns out I can!!!! if it's a good fic well... questionable :P 
> 
> thankyou so much every one for joinign me on this journey. and thank you so. so much to everyone who left me a comment, they really kept me going loool. I will now finally be able to reply to them!!! i was straight up so badly wanting to spoil my own fic in replies to comments:P. and now i will definitely be uploading fics just once a week. i have had wrist cramp many times the last 6 days....
> 
> if you had fun reading, let me know your thoughts!!!! comments are fun. I am interested to hear if people think i am stupid for doing this :P


End file.
